The Flower Bed Flaws

Skip Richter takes your questions all morning long!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Rictor.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Shoes Mill, the crazy band in the bassis.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
I guess, can you want a shrimp?

Speaker 4 (00:14):
Just watch him as whom gods bassis and gasbe.

Speaker 5 (00:18):
Can you as many God takes the soup bason in
ways the bassis.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Like gas and began you dates.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Almost globs back kicking. They're not a sign. The glasses
and gas and.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
The sun bemon of te.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Rasing the gasses like gas.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Maybe can you.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Jam starting and treatment in the gasses?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I guess maybe time you did? Everything is something let's
see and everything here is sun in the hands.

Speaker 6 (01:14):
Well, good morning, good morning, welcome to garden Line. Good
to have you with us this morning on a nice
little Saturday morning. Looking forward to visiting with you about
the things that are of interest to you Regarding your garden.
How do we help you have success? The way we
say it here on Guarden Line is we want your
garden to be bountiful. We want your garden to be beautiful,

(01:34):
and we want your garden to be fun. That's another
way to put it. I guess bountiful, beautiful and fun,
that's what it's all about. If you got a question,
you can give me a call seven one three two
one two five eight seven four seven one three two
one two fifty eight seventy four. We'll be happy to
visit with you and see if we can get to
the bottom of it. I want to let you know
that I'm going to be at Arbor Gate today after

(01:57):
the show. I'll be there from twelve noon to two pm,
twelve million to two pm. I hope you'll come out
and see us. We're gonna be set up there and
answering your gardening questions. We'll be doing diagnostics. Have you
got some maybe some identification or diagnostic questions, So for example,
what is this weed? And how do I get rid
of it? Put it in the plastic bag? Bring it

(02:18):
to me, let's look at it and we'll figure it out.
Maybe you've got some photos that you want to bring along.
This is your chance. We can take a look at them.
And if you're anywhere in the Greater region up there
at the Arborgate, come on, come on out, les, let's
see how we can help. We'll also just visit. I
always love to visit eye to eye with the folks
that listen to Garden Line. Love to meet you and

(02:40):
it's kind of our chance to have a little more
time to visit one on one than we do here
on the show. Things get a little busy sometimes on
the show we have to keep moving. I like the
eye to eye better anyway, you get the idea. Well,
I was looking around my yard the other day and
I noticed weeds. And I'm gonna talk a little bit

(03:01):
about some specific weeds that are popping up right now. Well,
let me put this way. They're not popping up now,
they've been up, but they're showing their face right now
where we can notice them and see them. And I'll
talk about that in a little bit here, so we
get a little later in this this hour. Also, I
want to visit about some of the issues that happened

(03:21):
this time of the year and the lawn and the
garden and the landscape that you might be seeing, so
we can get down to the bottom of that as well.
Let's start by going straight out to the phones this morning,
and we are going to visit with Bob in Porter. Hello, Bob,
welcome to Garden Line.

Speaker 7 (03:40):
But thank you.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
I'm good.

Speaker 7 (03:41):
Yeah, we're going to ask when to prune sweet olive
bushes and my citrus, my lemon tree, you.

Speaker 6 (03:51):
Can do minor pruning anytime you need to do it
on them. I would not prune ceterus though, going into winter,
because when you prune ceterri, you're going to get tender
new growth coming out, and that doesn't stand a chance
at the lightest you know, frost, So I would avoid
that and wait until we get kind of past the
danger of frosts and freezes to do your citrus pruning.

(04:14):
I bet the sweet all of you can do a
little bit of that now if.

Speaker 7 (04:16):
You like, If you don't mind, I got one more, yes, sir, Yes,
I bought some. I bought some pineapple guava bushes, shrubs
or whatever. Should I should I plant them now? Or
should I try to win on them over and plant
and spring on them? And if I do, do I
need to trim trim them up before a plant.

Speaker 6 (04:40):
You know, guava is a pretty cold tender plant, and
uh in general, uh pardon.

Speaker 8 (04:49):
Something, just.

Speaker 6 (04:51):
Okay, all right, sir? About that. Uh So, yeah, it's
kind of cold tender. So you can plant it now
if there's sort of a you have an option. You
can plan it now, but you're going to have to
be ready to protect it if we get a real
cold spell. Let me, I should clarify, is this the

(05:13):
true tropical guava or is this the pineapple guava? It's yeah,
it has it has moderate heartiness, but we can get
cold damage to it. We had a a few years
ago we had a guava killing back to the ground here.
But anyway, it depends on where you live in the

(05:36):
in the listening area. I would go ahead and plan it.
Just be ready should we get a good you know
we're going to get down in the I don't know,
upper twenties, even mid twenties for sure, be ready to
protect that thing. This first year spell already.

Speaker 8 (05:54):
Thank you so much for what you do.

Speaker 6 (05:56):
Thank you, appreciate, appreciate you call thanks a lot. RCW
Nurseries is up there where bel Wag eight and two
forty nine come together, and they've got their October sale
going on right now, and it is a doozy. I
called it the perfect storm because the best time to
plant trees and shrubs and perennials is the fall. It's

(06:16):
the best time and RCW is making it easy by
even fifteen percent off yours aias and comullias, crapes, grape myrtles,
thirty percent off, select roses and citrus trees forty percent off,
and then they've got the bigger perennials thirty percent off
Boogain villas. I know it's coming to winter, but you
know you protect it and you're not going to get

(06:37):
a better deal than fifty percent off of a Boogain
villa right now. And I know a lot of people
that carry those through the wintertime. So check them out.
RCW Nursery again, Tomball Parkway and belt Way eight. It's
a great place to shop and you will thoroughly enjoy yourself,
especially getting these kind of deals. Remember, if you need
a larger sized tree planted, then you want to try

(06:57):
to pick up They'll come out and do the planning
for you at our for RCW Nurseries. Let's go out
now to Spring Branch. We're going to talk to Judy. Hey, Judy,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 9 (07:09):
Hi.

Speaker 10 (07:09):
Thanks, I have a question about Saint Augustine grass.

Speaker 11 (07:14):
Can I plant it now?

Speaker 12 (07:17):
Can you?

Speaker 6 (07:18):
Yes? But I would do it right when we hang up.
Don't wait because the further we get into fall, the
less rapidly that grass roots in and so you're kind
of pampering it. Along a little bit longer.

Speaker 8 (07:35):
I know.

Speaker 6 (07:36):
We some people will plant it all the way through
you know, the cool season. But I don't recommend it
as a practice. But if you've got it in now,
got it watered in, don't fertilize it until spring. Uh,
just get it watered in good like you're supposed to.
Don't let it dry out for one minute. But you know,
don't keep it a swamp either. I think you'll get

(07:57):
by just fine.

Speaker 13 (08:00):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (08:01):
Another question.

Speaker 10 (08:01):
I planted some April about three years ago. It looked
beautiful for about three weeks than big yellow patches. Do
you think I overwatered it?

Speaker 14 (08:12):
Because I did. I did water it a lot.

Speaker 6 (08:16):
Probably probably the disease a brown patch called large patch.
Also it uh, it loves extra moisture and mild temperatures.
And April is a little late to see it, but
you could. You could probably have brought it on in April, Biden,
you know, doing the overwatering.

Speaker 10 (08:37):
Okay, so it's better to wait till spring.

Speaker 6 (08:40):
The planet, Well, I think you can still plant it
now if you want to. And if you got a
bear spot you're gonna have, it's gonna be full of weeds,
so you might as well get something on top of it.
But we're kind of hitting the end of the line
here in terms of having the best success with planting out.

(09:00):
If you take good care of it, you can plan
it now.

Speaker 8 (09:04):
Okay, well, thank you, thank you, Judy.

Speaker 6 (09:07):
Appreciate your call very much. All Right, folks, I'm gonna
take a little break here and we'll be right back. Hey,
welcome back to the guard Line. On a nice Saturday,
lovely saturday. I just want to remind you again I'm
going to be at Arborgate Garden Center Arburgate Nursery this
day at noon to two. Got that noon to two today.

(09:30):
I hope you come out and see me. Look forward
to visiting with you. I would like to talk to
folks that are listeners to Garden Line. So here's a chance.
I'm not going to be this far north again for
uh oh the rest of this fall. So if you,
uh those of you folks live bit living up in
College Station, do you ever come down here? How about
how about Huntsville. I know it's a drive, but hey,

(09:51):
going to the arbor Gate's fun. You will if you've
not been to the Arburgate, you got to go. It
is a great, great place to go. You know, I
talk about so all the time because soil is the
key to success. I was just prepping some soil myself
the other day. Cinamalts down south of Houston. Is your
one stop shop for soil? And what do I mean
by one stop shop? And when I talk about bronze

(10:12):
stuff before green stuff, what am I saying? What I'm
saying is the soil is the majority of your plant's success.
You eat the drainswill or it doesn't. You can build
a raised bed, you can use nice well drained soil
you need to. It either has the nutrients the plant
needs and a nice balance, or it doesn't. And when
you go to Cianamlch you're gonna get those. Those soil

(10:33):
blends are straight compost if you want to do that,
a leaf moll compost, but a blend like the veggie
herbnix from airloom soils. They carry it there at Cienamals.
But they also carry the fertilizers, the microlifes, the medinas,
the nitrophoss, the Nelson plant foods, and diazemite as well.
It's just a one stop shop. And if you start

(10:53):
there and you get the soil right, your plant's gonna
do well. It is very important to start with the soil.

Speaker 15 (11:00):
Now.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
Of course plants need to be watered, and they need sunlight,
of course, yes, But the soil, that's the elephant in
the room, and that's where I see most gardeners go wrong.
We'll go right go to cinamals cianamalts dot com. They're
south of Houston on FM five twenty one. Cienamlts dot com.
Plus you'll love shopping there. They're fun, they are They're nice,

(11:24):
real nice folks. So anyway, I said, I was preparing
some soil in my yard.

Speaker 9 (11:29):
I have.

Speaker 6 (11:30):
I have some beds that I've been putting on. I
just finished a walkway last week. I have a little
stone walkway by the way Sanimalchs stone too. I'd lead
some decomposed granite down with some metal edging and put
some nice stone in it. I love doing stuff like
That's real fun. But anyway, it is also work. But
I don't know, there's a sense of accomplishment when you

(11:51):
step back and take a look at something.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
That you've done.

Speaker 6 (11:54):
By the way, I did have help. Yeah, I used
to do that kind of job on my own and
then somewhere north of forty. My body said, Okay, we're
not gonna do this anymore. You can't help or otherwise,
I will make sure you wake up in the prenatal
position tomorrow morning, begging for ibuprofen. So we did. We

(12:17):
got it all laid out and everything, and on one
side of it we're going to do a bed. And
it's because the it's the west side, and the brick
on that side of the house gets so hot. The
other night, I had water going out outside late in
the day and I'm sitting at home as it hard
turned dark outside and I got to turn off the

(12:39):
water and I went around to turn off the water
and as I walked by that wall, it was like
an oven radiating out at me. And that's what That's
what the western sun does in the summer to us,
or really anytime it's shining and heat sings up. So
what we're gonna do is we're gonna put a little
vine on there, but I'm not going to attach it
to the wall. I've got a little trellis, a livestock

(13:01):
panel trellis that we're going to use because it'll last
forever and it'll just be a wall of greenery, just
outside our brick wall. And anyway, that's what the plan is.
So that'll be a bed and it'll be a little
bit cheaper on the electric bill as we go along.
If you're interested in giving me a call seven one

(13:22):
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. And if
you got a brick wall like that, or if you
you have an area maybe that you know you could
use some shade, uh, or maybe you want a block
of you And I recommend this. Oftentimes people will call
and they'll they'll want a block of you, but you
know you've got a little small lot perhaps and you
don't have room for you know, at six feed or

(13:45):
wider eight feet wide Holly Road to go down the road,
you just lose a lot of your lot that way. Well,
then why not do a livestock panel or some other
kind of fencing and then put a nice evergreen vine
on it. And if you fertilize them, you can get
them to go up and across really quickly and you

(14:06):
get a nice wall of coverage that's very narrow. You
see this walking around Houston. I was down in one
of the neighborhoods up toward the Heights area and just
walking along the street looking at the heaved sidewalks. That's
a whole other conversation. And there's just a beautiful, beautiful

(14:28):
Confederate jasmine also called star jasmine growing on an iron
fence there, and it just made a beautiful wall. It
just reminded me again that if you need to screen
a view, if you want to shade yourself from the
setting western sun right beside your patio, maybe you could
put one of those up. And remember this that when

(14:50):
the closer you are to a screening structure or a
shade blocking structure that's vertical the sun blocking the uh,
the less high it needs to be, the shorter you
can get away with. So let's say you're sitting on
a patio and you got a horrible view. You know
it's that neighbor what they do, and you don't want

(15:13):
to look at it. Well, a six foot high screen
blocks it even if you stand up. I guess if
you're seven foot three, maybe you can see. You know,
you're gonna say what you don't want to see. My
point is just the further it gets away from you
toward that view, the taller it needs to be. You know,
draw it on a piece of paper, you know, just
you'll see what I'm talking about that eye's view. And

(15:34):
so sometimes a vine, an evergreen vine is a great
way to go. Anyways, just something to think about. ACE
Hardware stores are loaded with everything you need, and it
doesn't matter what that is. I mean, it's time to
have your Halliday, Halloween decorations, they've got them there. They
always have whatever seasonal we're about to enter the Christmas season,

(15:54):
you know, when all the lights come out and everything,
and ACE Hardware always has plenty of things. Some of
them will do a thing called lights by the foot
where you can actually make or they'll sort of make
this string for you. And so you know I need
one that is seven and a half feet long, Well
you know they can make that for you there. But anyway,

(16:15):
we'll talk about that more as we get closer. Remember
that for home safety things like fire alarms, things like
fire extinguishers and whatnot, they've got them there. A days
when you're looking for the right kind of power tools
to get the job done. You know those hand tools
from brands like Stanley Blackendecker Craftsmen to walt to Milwaukee,

(16:35):
They've got you covered for all of that. Just remember,
for most things. You can simply buy them online then
pick them up at the store. That makes it even easier.
And it's very important sign up for their ACE Rewards
program because then as you shop, you're getting discounts and
special offers that are only available to ACE Rewards customers
that are emailed directly to you. I'm an ASH Rewards

(16:57):
member and you should be. Two. Find your local ACE
Hardware store at ACE Hardware Texas dot com. ACE Hardware
Texas dot Com places like K and M and a
Tasca Seat on Timber Forest, Patco Ayson Willis on Alvin
out on the east side, Deer Park on Cedar Arc
Center Street. Up north on Spring on Rayford Road. That's

(17:20):
All Star Ace with All Star Aces. Another one in Magnolia.

Speaker 9 (17:24):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (17:24):
And then there's Cyprus Ace on Jones Road and Sinco
ranch Ase on South Mason out there in Katie. We're
gonna go back out to the phones now and visit
with Marty. Hello Marty, Welcome to Guardenline.

Speaker 16 (17:43):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (17:43):
Hello Marty. Do we get Marty there? Okay, I'm gonna
have to come back to Marty, get my producer to
check that, make sure it's working right. We'll get back
right back with her here in just second. The folks
at MIKE have a wide variety of products that are
based on one simple principle. Nature knows what it's doing.

(18:09):
Nature builds the soil naturally, tree leaves and other things.
Nature has the microbial powerful pack in the soil that
takes care of plant roots. There's microbes that protect plant
roots from diseases. There's microbes that directly fight certain kinds
of pests and diseases. There's a lot of micros that

(18:31):
do a lot of things, and that's what microlife is
based on. Right now, it's time to put down the
Microlife's brown patch in the brown patch brown bag. No,
it's a fertilizer, but it is loaded with sixty three
different species of beneficial microbes. That's why they call it
the brown patch because this is a season where brown
patch attacks. Microlife's brown bag called brown patch is not

(18:54):
just a fall fertilizer. It is also an excellent product
to put out to enhance the good guys, the beneficial
microbes out there in your garden. And you're gonna find
micro life products all over the place. You can go
to Microlife Fertilizer dot com find out more about them there. Hey, Marty,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 14 (19:14):
I think this is Mary. You're trying to talk to Mary.

Speaker 6 (19:18):
Oh Mary, Okay, excuse me, Mary. Listen. I'm going to
tell you, Brian, I've got a very hard break in
a minute thirty so if I need to, we'll hold
you over break. But let's see what we can do
in the meantime.

Speaker 14 (19:29):
Okay. I just have two quick questions. You've mentioned a
fertilizer that has a pre emergent for beside in it
in a purple bag. What is the name of that?

Speaker 6 (19:40):
That is from the folks at Nelson and it is
called carbo load carbo as a carbohydrate load carbo load. Okay, listen,
it's got the fertilizer and it's got the pre emergent.
And this is the only time of the year you're
gonna hear me tell you that a fertilizer with a
pre emergent is a good idea. Not in this okay,

(20:00):
but this time of year we happen to need to
fertilize and do pre emerging at the same time. But
don't delay.

Speaker 8 (20:06):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 14 (20:08):
One other question. Have a lot of Virginia button weed.
Do I put a weed killer on that or.

Speaker 17 (20:13):
Just let it die.

Speaker 6 (20:14):
Now it's it's a little late to benefit from it.
And I'm gonna wind it up with this quick answer.
The anything you can pull out and get all those
buttons and things out of there will save you some
seeds for next year. But wait until next year when
the new growth starts, and call me and we'll talk
about the things you do to shut it down next year.

Speaker 14 (20:34):
All right, Well, will this pre emergency herbicide keep that
from growing?

Speaker 6 (20:40):
Uh not? Now you have to put that down in
the spring according to my schedule. I'm sorry, I'm aready,
but I do I do have to run. I'm gonna
put you out. If you want to stick around, we
can continue this. We'll be back in just a moment. Folks,
stay tuned in the meantime. Seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. All right, welcome back. For
good to have you with us. Hey, if you can

(21:04):
do any tree planting this year or even in the
winter and spring, you need a three sixty tree stabilizer.
And the reason I say that is is I have
drugged the wires out there and gotten sections of garden
hose and put them through the wires to try to
stake a tree down in three different directions, and then
I'm tripping over the wires. They're in the way. It
just takes time. It's a mess, and it's easier to

(21:26):
just do with the three sixty tree stabilizer. You'll put
a little post in the ground. You can drive a
tea post in the ground if you want to do that,
and attach the stabilizer to it. Reach out the other
end attaches to the tree. It's got a knife, nice
soft leather or leather rubber strap on it that allows movement,
and you need to set it to allow movement because
movement makes strength in plants. Maybe I'll talk about that

(21:49):
a little bit later this morning, but anyway, movement makes
for strength in plants. So a little movement, not a
lot tree stabilizer does it. They last forever, they're adjustable,
They really really work. I've used them myself. In fact,
I got two on trees right now in my yard
that I'm using now the folks from three to sixty

(22:10):
tree stabilizer. Kurt, he's going to be out there at
Arburgate with me today, so come on out and see one.
Maybe you win one when you're out there, but Kurt
will be out there with the with the three sixty
tree stabilizers so you can see what I'm talking about.
I'd love to show it to you. I love for
you take a good look, and I'll tell you this.
I've been very happy with it, and I think you
will too. And you can find it a lot of
places around town, including the arbor Gate out there in Tomball.

(22:34):
So come on out and let's let you see this
cool product. It's gotten. Now to Spring Valley. This morning,
we're going to talk to Walter. Hey, Walter, welcome to
garden Line.

Speaker 8 (22:45):
Hey, hey, Skip, how's it going this morning?

Speaker 6 (22:49):
Doing well? Thank you.

Speaker 18 (22:52):
I've got some azelias that sit in the front of
my house, right in front of a brick wall. They
don't get a lot of sun, and in the last
couple of days they've looked like they're starting that the
leaves are starting to welt wilting okay, and they're showing
a few of them are starting to show some like
some yellowing the leaves or showing some yellowing and some

(23:13):
small brown spots. So I don't know if I have
a disease or maybe I've over water.

Speaker 9 (23:18):
Them or.

Speaker 6 (23:21):
Yeah, well it's it's it could be the most likely
thing is underwatering azilias because they their root system is
such that they need more frequent watering because they don't
don't have as deep an extensive of a root system
as as a lot of shrubs do. But so that's
one those symptoms would be very typical about. You can

(23:44):
over water them and exclude the oxygen from getting to
the roots. Roots need oxygen to live, and there are diseases.
There's even a disease in the soil that the spores
of this fungus. This is kind of weird and cool,
but the spores of it are like little tadpoles. Is
swim through the water and they will infect the roots

(24:06):
and they'll kill in azelia pretty quickly. Actually, I don't
think you have that that it could be that that
would be another cause of it. If it turns out
you're losing some, you can always send one up to
the diagnostic lab at A and M and they can
identify for sure what disease it is. Then you know
what to do about it. But I don't like just

(24:26):
going out and you know, using pesticide products just because
it might be something this or that or the other.
In most cases you're not going to need to do that,
but anyway, it's possibility.

Speaker 18 (24:37):
Okay, So just water, try water more. And one other question,
what would be the best plant food for these a zalias?

Speaker 6 (24:46):
Something for acid loving plants. There are a number of
products out there that are sold for acid living plants,
you know. For example, okay, there there is a product
from Nelson uh for acid living plants. Microlife has one
as well that a lot of people buy.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (25:05):
And then even you know net files, A lot of
these these folks will carry something for plants that like acidity,
like azelias and communias and blueberries for example.

Speaker 18 (25:17):
Okay, because I throw coffee grains on them occasionally on
the base of the of the I guess the plant
on the ground, I'm assuming that would be okay, since
coffee's got some acid.

Speaker 6 (25:29):
Yeah, it's okay, Just don't do too much. You know,
I wouldn't like dup a ton of it right at
the base of the plant. But if you scatter it
just scattered around under there, it's organic, it'll rot, it'll
go back to the soil, and it is somewhat said. Okay,
but that alone is not going to be enough to
create that acid environment that you're for.

Speaker 18 (25:48):
Okay, so try try and maybe water them a little
bit more and see what happens.

Speaker 8 (25:52):
And it's not.

Speaker 6 (25:53):
Then from there, yeah, take yeah, dig down, get well
to get you like a hand trawl or something, and
go down about you're not three or four inches and
just feel the soil. It should be nice and nice.
If it's not, you're not you're not putting enough water out.
But again it's it's a little more frequent, but you know,
I want to be careful that I don't have you
creating a swamp out there that's not what you want.

(26:15):
But a little more frequent so that it does stay moist,
and I think they should be okay if unless something
else has jumped on them. And in that case, you're
probably getting a little late to do much.

Speaker 7 (26:27):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (26:28):
I appreciate my information. Enjoy your weekend.

Speaker 6 (26:33):
Thank you, you as well appreciate that very much.

Speaker 7 (26:36):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (26:37):
Houston Powder Coders is the number one powder coder in
this whole region. And when I say region, I was
talking to folks at Houston Powdered Coders the other day
and they like they were talking about going over almost
to like Austin or San Antonio, to pick up, pick
up a job to bring it back here. And that's
what they do. They'll go get they'll come to your
house and get get your stuff. You know, you're your

(26:59):
rust the patio furniture or the maybe that barbecue pit
that is kind of starting to get a little rusty
on the edges and lost that nice, nice black sheen.
If that's the color. The barbecue cupit was uh And
they can put any color you want on it. If
you want a pink barbecue pit, they got over one
hundred colors in stock. You can do that. That's a

(27:21):
shocking mental picture anyway. But anything that's metal, cast iron,
wrought iron, aluminum, patio furniture, anything that's metal, they can
coat it and they can make it last a lot longer.
For those of you living down on a coast, you
got that salt spray and things, they have special coatings
to deal with that and to protect those as well.

(27:41):
They do professional work. You can go to Houston powder
Cooders dot com. Houston powder Cooders dot com. You can
give them a call. Two eight one two six seven
excuse me, six gosh, I'm sitting here looking at a
number and I can't say it. It's too early in
the morning. I need another cup of coffee. Two eight
one seven six thirty eight eighty eight. Let me try

(28:02):
that one more time. Two eight one six seven six
thirty eight eighty eight. Or just do this. Go on
Facebook and find Houston powder coders. Take a look at
the work they do. Amazing you'll get You'll start getting
a lot of ideas. Oh wow, I could take this,
or I could take that. You should And like I said,
they'll come pick it up if you like Houston powder coats.

(28:25):
That is funny.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
I was.

Speaker 6 (28:29):
The other day. I was out watering and I had
not watered an area for a while. And I want
to talk about drought when we come back here, but
I was watering and I was noticing the water had
pulled back from the edges of the foundation on my house,
and it just reminded me of that shrink swell potential
in our soils when clays, especially some type of clays,

(28:50):
and we have those types here in the Greater Houston area.
When they get dry, they shrink, when they get wet,
they swell, And you think, well, okay, that's a big deal.
But that power of the movement of that soil can
crack a foundation. It certainly can crack a sidewalk in
or driveway, fix my slab. Foundation repair can do all

(29:11):
of that. They can do all of that. They they
are experts at this. They'll come out and they'll assess it.
Because I was talking with Ty Strickland, who owns it,
been doing this for twenty five years now, I believe,
and he was saying, you know, all foundations are gonna
have a little crack in them in time. That's kind
of just how it is. But when that crack starts
moving enough, you're getting you know, cracks in the sheet

(29:33):
rock and cracks in the brick and things. You need
to have somebody to look at it to see if
it needs to be something needs to be done to
prevent significant damage to your home. Two eight one two
five five forty nine forty nine two eight one two
FIY five forty nine forty nine fixmyslab dot com. They
can also if you've got a driveway that's kind of
heaving and buckled and you know it's kind of weird,

(29:54):
they can they can flip that back up and get
it all level and nice for you. Again, they have
a special way of doing that. It's kind of cool
injecting some stuff underneath it. So call fix my slab
two eight one two five five forty nine forty nine.
I'm gonna take a little break and we'll be right
back with your calls at seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. Hey, welcome back, Welcome back

(30:17):
to Guardline folks. Good day with us. What kind of
questions do you have? Let's talk this morning. I know
you're just getting a cup of coffee there, probably getting started.
The brain's starting to fire, and uh, as you get
an eye or two open, let's visit, give me a
call seven one three two one two fifty eight seventy four. Uh,
it is time for the nitrofoss three step. And the

(30:39):
sooner you do this the better. I would not delay.
It is time to get that done. We're gonna get
some little rain coming through some of these areas. We're
getting a break in the in the weather, and the
weeds are going to be sprouting. The cool season weeds
that you'll be looking at is big old giant weed
plants next spring in your yard. Uh it the brown
patch circles. I've already seen some form in areas where

(30:59):
they have gotten a little bit of rain, or they
watered too much and kept the soil kind of wet
and the grass kind of wet. It's time to get
it done. So what is the three step? It is
the Fall Special Winneriser from Nitrofoss designed for fall high
and potassium, good winter hardiness for your lawn and good
strong initial growth in the spring. Secondly, it's the barricade

(31:20):
that's from Nitrofross too, that prevents weeds from germinating. It
doesn't kill weeds that are in your lawn now. It
takes the weed seeds and says no, you're not going
to become a weed plant. That's basically what barricade does.
And then Eagle Turf Fungicide prevents brown patch from attacking
your lawn if you wait until your lawns full of
brown circles and then put the product down. Well, you've

(31:43):
already they're brown, right, Maybe you stop additional circles, but
all these brown circles now are going to sit there
until spring when the grass regrows and regreens them again.
Three steps Fall Special Winneriser, barricade, the Eagle Turf Fungicide.
You're going to get products like this that you know
that nit fass products are carried all over the place,

(32:04):
is not. It's not hard to find them. So for example,
Lake Hardware and Clute Fissure's hardware in Baytown, or plants
and things in Brenham, all places where you can get
these nitofass product products. Part of that Texas three step.
I was talking to somebody the other day and they
had they had one of those circles happening in their

(32:27):
yard and we were looking at it and say, yep,
that's ryse actonia, which is a fancy name for brown patch,
and it is an opportunist. One thing to remember about
diseases is diseases are basically what are they caused by
the Well, they're caused by a fungus or bacteria or
virus or whatever. But they're brought on by environmental conditions,

(32:50):
especially the fungi. You know, you got a fungal spore
out there, whether it's black spot on a rose or
you know, an algal leaf spot on your magnolias, or
a brown patch in your lawn. And when it's when
they have moisture and when they have the right temperature
for a period of time, that's spore germinates and it

(33:11):
infects and now you've got problems. So it's all about
the environment. That's why we don't want of the reasons
we don't overwater our lawn, you're just asking for more problems.
That's another reason we don't like plant rose bushes close
together where the air can't circulate, and then have a
pop up sprinkler that wets them every other day. I mean,
you're just you are just setting the stage for brown patch,

(33:33):
us brown patch, for a black spot on your roses.
The same thing happens in our lot, our lawns with
brown patch. So don't do that. Don't promote these things.
Let's let's avoid it culturally as best we can. We're
going to head out to the heights now and talk
to Ray. Hey, Ray, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 19 (33:53):
Hey, Skip, I've got a new driveway in The grass
on the side of the driveway is about eight ten
inches higher than the driveway. I need to dig that out.
It's about four foot by twenty. I just need to
know what time I can do that and plant that
grass back.

Speaker 6 (34:11):
Well, if you do it right away, you can do
it now. Otherwise in the spring, when it warms up
a little bit, grass will establish very fast and so uh,
the mild weather of spring is a great time to
plant grass because you're not having to water it so
carefully to keep it from drying out like you would
in the summer, and that that would be the ideal time.

(34:31):
But if you need for some reason to get it done,
do it right away. Don't don't delay because as we're
going to fall, the grass root growth slows down.

Speaker 8 (34:41):
Yeah, I need to slope it from four foot back
down to the driveway. And there's a lot of digging
up in the box. Yeah. Another question.

Speaker 19 (34:52):
Yeah, I've got a sinkhole and it's not in my yard.
It's between garages in my backyard.

Speaker 8 (34:58):
And it used to get tree there and the trees
been cut.

Speaker 19 (35:01):
Down for years, and I'm found your terminate for some
roots wrought it out and the dirt starts sinking down.

Speaker 6 (35:08):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 8 (35:10):
It looks like it. It looks like it falls a root.

Speaker 19 (35:15):
And then you can shine a light down there. It
goes down about five or six feet. It looks like
a piece of concrete down there.

Speaker 8 (35:22):
It looks like an old drain. So I kind of bother.

Speaker 6 (35:25):
I don't know about that. Don't know about that, but
i'd get some good soil. Don't just put compost in that.
Get get good soil. Fill it up, make it a
little higher because it's going to settle a little more.
And that's the best advice Ray that I can give
you on it. Hey, I'm gonna have to run, but
good luck with getting that under control and with getting
all your jobs done. Hire some kids, take care. I

(35:47):
appreciate that very much. Hey, pest pros. You know pest Pros.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
I know you know.

Speaker 6 (35:52):
They're the place to go for your termite control. They
have a way to do it that is last ten
years and it works. They know how to do things safely.
They're also the place to go for your mosquito control.
We've been talking about that all summer time. For cockroaches
and things in the house. Yes, they're the place, but
did you know they are also the place that can
do with varmuts. You know, we get this cold weather

(36:14):
and if you got away from them to get up
in there, you're gonna have rats. You're gonna have squirrels
or other things that are up in the attic or
causing problems outside. Called the pest Bros. Two eight one
two oh six forty six seventy two eight one two zero,
six four six seven seven zero, or go to the
website the pestbros dot com The pest bros dot com.

(36:42):
We were talking about some products a friend of mine
and I the other day and he was going to know,
where do you get that? Because I was talking to
him about something's very hard to find, and I said,
we'll go to Southwest Fertilizer. So Southwest Fertilizer Corner Bissing
Utton Runwick. If they don't have it, you don't need
it because they carry everything that you need, everything that works.
We're talking about fertilizers, insects, diseases, weeds, whatever you need.

(37:07):
Southwest has got you covered. Corner Abyssinet and Runwick seven
one three six, six six one seven four four seven
one three six sixty six one seven four four to
one stop shop for all that you need. Southwest Fertilizer.
I love love visiting with Bob out there. I need
to get back. I didn't see Bob a little bit here.

(37:27):
We can get back out there and say hi to them.
Uh the pro the I just wandered through that place
because there's so many cool things to do. How's it Moss,
nursery while back looking at some beautiful camellias that they
brought in. You know, they had the Japonicas and the sassanquas,
the two main kinds of comunities you see here in
the Houston area. They don't bloom at the same time generally.

Speaker 7 (37:50):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (37:50):
And so you can cover your winter with beautiful flowers
at Moss Nursery, of course, hanging baskets, vegetables, herbs, whatever
you need. This isn't just another garden center. It's a
seventy year old, family operated eight acre source for everything
you need. I'm talking about plans, I'm talking about containers.
They've got you covered. Bos Nurserymaas Nursery dot com two

(38:13):
eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight two
eight one four seven four twenty four eighty eight. Well
the music means I got to quit talking, which I
will do for just a little bit here. This would
be a good time to call in. Be first up
as we enter our next hour seven one three two
one two five eight seven four, don't forget today. I'm

(38:34):
going to be at Arborgate in Tomball, Texas. I'll be
there from twelve to two answering your gardening questions. The
folks from three sixty three Stabilizer are going to be
out there as well. If you want to see what
one of those things looks like, come on out take
a look at mine. I think you will be impressed.
So that's that's the deal for today. Uh let's go

(38:54):
get a cup of coffee and we'll continue this conversation.
And just a little bit.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Welcome to Katie r. H. Garden Line with Skip Ricardes.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
Mill crazy here listening the gas.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Can you a trip?

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Just watch him as we'll go. Gas.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
That are so many good takes, the superbatas.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
In bays and gas and again.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
You did Samos back not a side, glasses and.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Gas, the sun Beamon of.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
The basis and gas starting treat.

Speaker 6 (39:57):
All right, we're back. Welcome to garden Line. Welcome back
to Guardline. I'm your host, Skip Richter. We're here to
answer your questions, to help you have a beautiful landscape,
a bountiful garden and more fun in the process. Wouldn't
that be nice? Well, it's it's achievable. It's available to
you and we can tell you how to do it.
So get us a call. Here is the number seven

(40:19):
one three two, one, two, five, eight, seven four be
happy to visit with you about those kind of things.
Down in League City is the feed store for that region,
and it's called League City Feet And when I say region,
i'm talking about you know, Santa Fe, Dickinson, San Leon,
baklef Lamark, Webster, el Comina, Reale, Clear Lake City, all

(40:40):
of those communities down there. They got you covered. At
League City feed Place is open from nine am to
six pm Monday through Saturday, closed on Sunday. But that
six pm closing six days a week allows you to
swing by there on the way home from work to
grab whatever you're looking for. And now, of course it's
a feed store. They got feed high high end pet
foods as a matter of fact, but they also have

(41:03):
what you need to get your garden going and your
lawn looking good and your landscape thriving. And that would
be products from nitrofoss and asumite and microlife from Nelson
Plant Food and also soils by the bag from Heirloom Soil.
If you've got pest diseases or weeds you need to

(41:25):
deal with those. They've got those kinds of products as
well to help you have success. At League City feed
two eight, one, three, three, two, sixteen twelve. By the way,
if you're heading over there, it's on Highway three, just
a few blocks of south of Highway ninety six in
League City. So anyway, I have been there's an elephant

(41:47):
in the room today in our gardening, and I want
to talk about it. I'm probably do it more than once,
because I know that not everybody listens for four hours.
I was heartbroken the first time I heard that. I thought, well,
you know, people are listening the whole time. I'm just kidding.
But and that that elephant is called drought, and I
had not really looked at the extent of the drought

(42:11):
weather wise. I was visiting some weather stations and getting
the data and things. It's like, whoa, We've got areas
that since the end of August first of September since
then have not received a half inch of rain. Certainly
insurrain and listen. September is a summer month in this

(42:33):
part of Texas, in fact, most of Texas, it's a
summer month, and it is hot. And for it to
be that dry in October, you know, it's been up
there a little bit that is really hard on plants
and it's especially you know, hard on trees, and but
our lawns are struggling. I've been kind of on a
I don't water my lawn lot. I kind of keep

(42:54):
it just a little on the dry side. It really
helps with the number of things, including diseases. But I
was looking at my lawn going and that what's wrong there,
and you know, because I'm normal, watering just wasn't cutting it.
And I just realized, for crying out, let's if it's hot,
the lawn is still needing more water. And so whatever

(43:15):
kind of plants you have, give them a good deep soaking.
Certainly for a lawn, but other things, you know, roses,
leaves turning yellow and dropping off. Crape myrtles since gosh,
way back in September, have been having leaves drop off
and fall off the plant, and they're laying in your yard,
and there are other things. The leaves are laying around
in the yard right now, and it's just because of

(43:36):
the drought that well, it could be a lot of
things for in the individual plant, but in general, that
is what's happening to our plants, and they need a
good deep soaking. Now, what's a good deep soaking typically
an inch of water for lawns, one inch of water applied.
You can use a rain gage and use straight sided
cans to find out how long to have to run

(43:57):
my system to put out an inch. But it's time
to do that. It's time to make sure that that
happens for other plants. It could be a little over
an inch. You know, tree root systems are still primarily
in the top foot of soil, so you don't have
the water three feet deep for a tree. It's mostly
in the top foot of soil. But you got to
get it out there. How do you know that you've
wet the soil let's say eight inches ten inches a

(44:21):
foot deep. How do you know how deep you've wet.
We'll get a screwdriver and walk out in your yard
and push it down and if it's if it's wet
soil will it'll pretty easily go down through that soil.
But if it feels like you hit a concrete sidewalk,
you know, six inches down or four inches down, that
means that only the top six or four inches there
is wet because when you hit dry soil that screwdriver

(44:44):
it stops and it would take a lot of effort
to push it through. So use a screwdriver as your
little test gauge if you want to check some areas.
But in general, we need to be water. And I
haven't been talking about that a lot, but I need
to be And so here we go.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Now we are.

Speaker 6 (45:03):
But make sure you get your plants a good deep soaking.
The best way to water, the way nature waters is
a good deep soaking on an infrequent basis. That's kind
of ideal. That allows the soil to dry out and
bring air back in, but it doesn't let it get
so dry that the plants are suffering. That's what we're
looking for, all right. A little tip for the day,

(45:26):
Nature's way resources. Speaking of soil, they know how to
enhance soil. That's why it's called Nature's way. How does
nature build soil? Really? I mean, you know Amazon jungle
before anybody gets out there and starts rototilling and fertilizing
and do all, how does the soil get so good
in there? How does the grasslands have such nice good soil.

(45:51):
It's because nature does that from tree leaves falling on
the ground and the jungle little parrot poop here and
there doesn't hurt from the grass plants. The roots live
about a year and die and they're contributing that organic
matter to the soil slowly over years and years and years,
and the soil gets better. So Nature's Way they provide
those kind of products so you don't have to wait

(46:12):
eighty years to have good soil. Nature's Way Resources has
rose soil. They've got their leaf mold compost, two of
the most famous products that they make. They also have
various kinds of mulches that are just outstanding. Whatever you're
going to grow, maybe it's citrus trees, maybe it's an azalea.
Give them a call it Nature's Way and they will

(46:33):
tell go buy there and they'll tell you about the
products they have that would work best for that. That's
Nature's Way Resources dot com. They're up there on Sherbrook
Circle almost to Tombol up forty five now Central Rock
and Mults by the way and Ian and Yale and
kind of north side of Houston. Central Rock and Malts

(46:54):
now carries their fine leaf mold composts by the yard.
So those of you not wanting to make a drive,
you can go to Central Rocky Maulch and get bulk
of the leaf moold compost, so you may want to
do that. Make sure you're off to a good start.
All right, We're gonna take a little break here and
i'll be right back with your calls at seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four. A good morning,

(47:17):
A little boogie woogie piano. The good to have you
with us here on Guardline. Thanks for being a guarden
Line listener. We appreciate that, and I hope you're enjoying it.
And I hope you'll tell your friends and family, especially
that neighbor across the street that doesn't take care of
your shard, well let them know about garden Line. It's uh,

(47:37):
you know, it's it's always good to have more listeners.
So today I'm going to be at Arborgate from twelve
noon to two pm. Twelve noon to two pm, I'll
be there answering questions. Uh, and I hope you'll come out.
But don't just come out, you know, for because of
an appearance thing. I'm not saying that. I'm saying come

(47:57):
out and see Arbor Gate. Arborgate an outstanding garden center
and you will enjoy it. In fact, I would suggest
that you grab friends and family members and bring them
out with you because they will love it. If someone
does not want to be anywhere near a plant or
gardening or anything, they can go into the two gift
shops and have a really good time. I promise you

(48:19):
they're going to see stuff they can't live without. But
most people have a pulse and therefore they would at
least appreciate the beauty of plants, right, And that's that's it.
That's the Arborgate. So come on out and see me.
Buchanan's Native Plants in the Heights. It's just an outstanding place.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
You know.

Speaker 6 (48:39):
By the way, did you know that this is Native
Plant Week? It started yesterday and it'll go all the
way through the twenty fourth of October. It's a whole week,
of course, and it falls a great time to plant
Texas native plants in your garden. And there's not a
better place than Buchanus Native Plants to find an outstanding
selection of native plants. So go buy and stock. We're

(49:00):
talking about natives that bloom. We're talking about natives of
some faul color. We're talking about natives that are resistant
to pests and diseases, Natives that bring in butterflies and
that support bees and that bring in hummingbirds. They're all there.
It may be native trees, it may be native perennials.
Right now, boy, I tell you what, if you have
Greg's Missflower is Texas native. If you have Greg's Misflower

(49:24):
at your place, you got more monarchs and queen butterflies
than you know what to do with. I mean, they
love that plant. In this time of the year when
there are not a lot of things blooming compared to
the spring, Greg's Missflower is and it looks really, really good.
I've got some turks cap in my backyard. That is
another one. The hummingbirds love it, those long red flowers,

(49:47):
or just a magnet for them, and you can get
them at Buchanan's Native Plants on Eleventh Street in the Heights.
But do this first. Go to Buchanansplants dot com. Check
out that website, sign up for the newsletter. It is outstanding,
and revisit the website because they put a lot of
good educational material right up there on the web for you,

(50:09):
So check them out. I was talking to about the
drought a little bit earlier, and the drought is an
issue that we've been having to deal with. The effect
of drought on plants is multi faceted. For example, there's
just the fact that I don't have water, I'm gonna die.
I'm a plant, right, There's that, But there's also the

(50:31):
stress and secondary issues. When your oaks, let's say you've
got you know, like post oaks if you're up north,
or the red oaks and some of the other white
oaks that are through a lot of our region here,
for example, when they get stressed, a disease called poxilin

(50:52):
canker that is already present with that tree. It's all
over the it's ubiquitous zeverywhere it has the opportunity to
move in and it will kill the tree. It'll at
least kill huge sections of the tree. But do you
blame the disease. No, you blame the drought because if
without the drought, this wouldn't have happened. That's that's how

(51:13):
that disease works. Take all root rot. You've been dealing
with that on your lawns. Take all is devastating. It
is the one disease it just like kills your grass,
flat out kills your grass. And it is an opportunist.
And I had a plant pathologist, a turf plant pathologist
for State of Texas, doctor Joe. He said that they

(51:35):
were looking to do a trial to do some work
on take all root rot, and it would going out
and taking samples from yards, and he said it was
hard to find a yard, even a healthy one where
take all root rot wasn't present in that yard. It's there,
But how can a yard be healthy if take all's there?
Because the yard is healthy, it's strong, and it's spending
it off. When you stress that grass, it could be

(51:56):
the misuse of herbicides, and it especially can be drought.
You weaken that plant and now take All moves in.
It gets its chance, and now we're trying to figure
out a fungicide to kill the take off. But the
real problem was the stress that brought it all on.
See what I'm saying. So try to keep your plants
out of drought stress. There's a lot of reasons to
do it, and I just gave you a few right there.

(52:19):
Nitefus has their Texas three Step, and the Texas three
step is the Nitropus Fall Special Winter Riser. The numbers
on the bag are eight twelve sixteen eight twelve sixteen.
Do you notice how that first number is normally really
high for a lawn fertilizer is lower. And how the
third number potassium is higher than normal. In the fall,

(52:41):
you want a little bit of nitrogen with a good
amount of potassium going into the plant. They going together
into the grass plant and they create heartiness. The way
I like to put it as an analogy is it's
like inter freeze in the plant. It makes it more hearty. Okay,
it's really carbohydrates and things. But then when the grass
grows in the spring, it's not using what roots are

(53:04):
taking up, you know in late February and March and
or most of March and stuff in our area. It
is the stored energy that is providing that initial push.
And then as grassroots get down, which they'll start to
grow and get down in the soil. Of course, then
the roots are taking up, but it's that early push
that is done by the fall fertilization. Does that make sense.

(53:27):
That is the first step of the three step Texas
three step by night fis second is barricade, which is
a weed prevention. You put it down, you watered in.
It gets in the soil. The seeds of the weeds sprout,
but they can't grow into plants. It stops them right
at that stage and then they die. That's how that works. Barricade.
Third step nitropos eagle turf fungicide. That's the disease preventer

(53:50):
of the brown patch, the large patch especially. It works
on other diseases as well, But those three are important.
But here's what you got to do. Each one has
to be watered in. So what I would do in
my yard if I were you, is put down all
three of them, one after the other. Go make you
three trips through the yard. Let's just get it all
done at once, and then turn on the sprinklers and

(54:12):
put about a half inch of water on the ground
and that'll move them down. That'll get them in the
soil where they can begin to do what each of
them needs to do. The UH eagle turf fungicite is
taken up by the roots of your lawn you're Saint
Augustine lawn for example. It's taken up by the roots,
it gets in the plumbing of the plant, and then
when brown patch tries to attack, it's there to help
fend off the problem. But that's only if you get

(54:34):
it down now before those servos starts showing up. You
gotta get it down now, all three of them. Now
you're gonna find night Foss products. It Bearings hardware on
Bissonet and Chanted Forests and Richmond and Lingham Creek is
hardware over in Cypress on the back side of a
Copperfield neighborhood all carry these night Foss products. Well, you know,
it's always funny on the phones on garden line. We

(54:56):
can go through times where it's like the phones are
running off the hook, and then and we can go
through times where it's quiet. Now it's a quiet time.
So you got a question, this would be a good
time not wait in line. We've got open board right now.
It's kind of unusual, but anyway, the time to call
would be in a quiet time. I think, you know,
I know callers aren't coordinating, but it would be nice

(55:19):
to have like a garden line board. You could go
online and go, oh look there's opening. Let me call
right now. This is a good time, and then people
wouldn't have to wait. I hate it when you have
to wait when you call in. So some folks are smart.
You notice this morning they called really early because they
know that's always a good time to get in it's
just a slower time. Your neighbors haven't woken up yet,

(55:41):
and so that's the time that you'd want to call.
You know, we think about generators when storm's hit and
being in the Houston area storm makes hurricanes come to mind,
and yeah, absolutely, the hurricanes do damage and cause problems
that we have to have a generator because we don't
have the power because it's knocked it out. But it

(56:02):
doesn't take a hurricane. It can be a winter storm
breaking lines and knocking them down, especially when we have
those ice storms that come through occasionally. And then it
could also be summer storms just the wind blowing in
things that knock stuff out. When you don't have power,
it's time to have a generator. It's a little late
to go try to find one then, but Quality Home

(56:22):
Products of Texas sells the Generat automatic stand by generator
and that thing is set up by Quality Home and
it's done right, and so when the power goes out,
the generator comes on automatically, which is cool. That is
really nice. But it's not just the generator that I'm
sending you to Quality Home for. I'm sending you to

(56:43):
Quality Home because of the service and the reputation. Their
reputation is like none other. I mean like seventy seven
thousand homeowners have received their service here. When you look
at their reviews, the five stars or tens of thousands
of reviews on the five stars. When you look at
the awards from Better Business Bureau or from the Houston

(57:04):
Chronicle Best of the Best division, you see Quality Home
there because they take care of their customers. From the
time you walk in and say I'm thinking about a generator,
helping you get the one you need, to all the
hoops you got to jump through to get that thing
set up. It's all in house, all the electricians, all
the people like that that are working on or their
Quality Home people. They don't sub out, and then when

(57:26):
they walk off from setting up the generator, the service
has just begun. It's a family owned operation in the
Houston area. They do have financing options available qualitytx dot
com or give them a call seven one three Quality,
seven to one three quality. Let's go to Scott now
in Fort BEng County and welcome to garden Line. Scott.

Speaker 20 (57:47):
Good to have you, Good morning, Skip, Thanks for taking
this off. Hey, I hadn't put down a fung just
side a couple of weeks ago, and I heard you
just talking about the three step. Is it too late
to go back with the other two?

Speaker 6 (58:03):
No, not at all, No you can. You can do
the other two now, absolutely, and I would get them done.
The winter weeds are going to be germinating with this
dropping temperatures we're we're going to have here and the
especially the rain that's coming in. So get them done soon.

Speaker 8 (58:18):
That awesome perfect. I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (58:20):
Thank you, you bet, thanks for the call.

Speaker 8 (58:23):
I'm sure with that very much.

Speaker 6 (58:25):
You take care. Uh as might azo might a mineral
supplement naturally mind out of the soil in Utah and
broad here to provide all of these different micro nutrient
trace minerals that plants need.

Speaker 7 (58:42):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (58:42):
It really really does work. And you know, every nutrient
is important if it's an essential nutrient. What does essential mean?
I mean it's has to have it. So if you
could in your soil remove every molecule of boron, nothing
could grow because boron is essential to plant growth. Isn't
that interesting? Asamite provides those kind many many, many types

(59:05):
of micronutrients so that you can have success. Put them
in the bank account. ASMIT Texas dot com. That is
the website. It's time to do fall fertilizing. Why not
get your fertilizer down there and then throw a bag
of azemite, which is also technically a fertilizer, just different
types of nutrients. Get it down on the ground as well.

(59:25):
Let's see here we are coming up on a hard break,
I mean to the second hard break. So Tracy in Cyprus,
you're going to be our first up when we come back.
Appreciate your call. Don't forget folks. I'm going to be
at the arbor Gate today from twelve to two. Come
on out and see me. Come on out and see
the arbor Gate. Come on out and check out the
three sixty tree stabilizers, cause they will. Kurt will be

(59:49):
there and he'll be showing and demonstrating his product. It's
kind of cool. I'd like to get one of those
in your hands. Take a look at it. I think
you'll love it. Bring me some samples, bring me some pictures.
Once we get a good amount of daylight out here,
go ahead and take some pictures of things. Put some
weeds in a bag, got some leaf spots, whatever, bring

(01:00:09):
them on in. We'll talk about them and what you
need to do. Hang around, We're gonna be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
All right.

Speaker 6 (01:00:15):
Good morning, Good morning, gardeners. It's gonna be a good
day for garden. Every day is a good day for gardening.
And I say that, and someone on one time said, well,
what if it's two degrees outside and hailing, have you
ever heard of a house plants? Have you ever heard
of starting seedlings indoors? Be a great day for gardening indoors.

(01:00:39):
That's every day is a good day for garden. Don't
forget that. Don't forget that.

Speaker 7 (01:00:43):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:00:44):
Beier Scapes is the go to landscaper and it's our
number one landscaper here on our preferred landscapers, I like
to say on garden line, and it's because of the
work they do. And don't take my word for it.
Go to the website Piercescapes dot com, p e a
Arcee Scapes, Pearscapes. Look at the work, look at what

(01:01:06):
they can do. I don't care what you need. If
you want your place to be more beautiful, more inviting,
a more pleasant outside, how about a nice new patio,
you know, and get your barbecue pits and all that
kind of stuff. They can do that they can do
hard scapes, by the way, that any kind of a walkway.
They can do irrigation repairs. Almost every irrigation system needs

(01:01:27):
some work. They can also do the complete landscape design
if you want, or just revamp an area landscape lighting.
They do it all all right now. They also have
a quarterly maintenance program and this is a good thing
to get signed up for because every quarter they come
out four times a year. They come out and they
check out your flower beds. You know, is irrigation working,

(01:01:49):
are their weeds to pull up there? Does it need
a replenishing, or they do replenish the mulch. And then
there's those seasonal times when maybe we're going to do
a color change out and they can that's part of
that program. You just you just talked to them about
what they can do, and you know how I can
be arranged. They'll get you set up at peer skates
two eight one three seven oh fifty sixty two eight

(01:02:12):
one three seven oh five zero six zero. We're going
to head out to Cypress now and talk to Tracy
this morning. Hey, Tracy, welcome to regardan list.

Speaker 11 (01:02:22):
Hey, good morning, good morning, Skiff, Thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:02:25):
Hey.

Speaker 11 (01:02:25):
Before I get to my question, pier Skates. I had
them come out earlier this year for some sprinkler maintenance
and they're beyond amazing. So a great company and highly recommended, just.

Speaker 20 (01:02:35):
Like you do.

Speaker 6 (01:02:37):
Well, great to ask you my question.

Speaker 11 (01:02:39):
Yeah, they're just amazing. We had some mature trees taken
down in our backyard last year, an oak and a
maple that were diseased, and you know, we probably had
an eighteen to twenty inch trunk size at the bottom,
and I want to replant at some point. I'm assuming

(01:03:00):
that there's probably still part of the tap root in
that area, and I will need to go some diameter
away from where that original tree was planted.

Speaker 15 (01:03:09):
Is that correct?

Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Yeah? Yeah, And it's probably not even a tap it's
these big surface roots where you get the What happens
is now you've got this huge chunk of wood underground,
and as it rots, it just sort of goes away
in time, and so the soil sinks down. So you know,
you're trying to plant something and you're hitting the wood
of the roots and all that. There's not a magic number,

(01:03:34):
like you know, I can't say five feet away or
ten feet away or whatever. You just kind of have
to find a good spot where you can dig. There's
not a problem that those other roots are there decomposing away.
It's just being able to dig the hole and then
not have all the soil around it settled down, like
if you tried to plant it right in the same spot,
that would be a mess.

Speaker 11 (01:03:55):
Okay, that's what I thought. And then one final question
about I'm going to call it. Ten years ago, we
were at arbor Gate and they had an arborist out
there who was pushing a I think it was called
a poplar. Oh, it's got these big giant white flowers
on it. Shoot, I'm just drawing a blank on the name,

(01:04:16):
but I've never heard it.

Speaker 8 (01:04:19):
No, it wasn't a.

Speaker 11 (01:04:22):
Hardwood tree.

Speaker 8 (01:04:23):
No, I want to say.

Speaker 11 (01:04:24):
I want to say a poplar maple or a poplar
oak or something like that that that had this giant
white flower. I mean, I'm talking like the size of
a double the size of a softball size of a flower.
And I've never heard it mentioned for our landscape, but
they were pushing it at.

Speaker 15 (01:04:43):
The arbor Gate at that time, and I just wondered
if you were familiar with it.

Speaker 6 (01:04:48):
It's not ringing a bell, there is a there is
a tree called tulip poplar, but it has a small
tulip poplars. Well, a tulipoplar bloom is going to be
maybe a baseball uh, and it's gonna be kind of
a a little bit on the sharp truse side of white.
But anyway, yeah, that you know, that's a big, a

(01:05:09):
big tall tree.

Speaker 7 (01:05:10):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:05:11):
I'd have to check on I think if tula poplar
uh primarily farther north, but I'm not gonna say it
wouldn't grow here. I bet it probably would, but I'd
have to just check on that before i'd put my
kind of Okay, go for it. I think it's a
good idea statement.

Speaker 8 (01:05:27):
Okay, cool, thanks a lot of skip, all right.

Speaker 6 (01:05:32):
Man, thanks a lot. Someone asked me the other day,
is that how do you answer questions on all these
crazy all these plants that come in and and I
told them I just make stuff up. No, just kidding,
not really, that would be a disaster. I don't do that.

(01:05:53):
But no, seriously, there are so many plants. I can't
answer plants about every kind of plant. I mean, for
crying out loud, there's a million different plants out there.
You can stump the chump if you find the right plant.
Tulipopper is just when I happened to have been around.
I actually was around Tulipoplar's in Missouri. I spent three
years in Missouri, and there's some gorgeous tulipoplers up there,

(01:06:14):
and I know they grow down in Texas. I just
don't know in the Houston area. I need check on
something before I would recommend them. You don't see them
as a recommended plant on lists. And that doesn't mean
they wouldn't grow here, just it just means I want
to be careful because I don't want to tell you
something and it not be true.

Speaker 8 (01:06:30):
You know it was was it?

Speaker 6 (01:06:33):
Will Rogers or Mark Twain, those guys say the same
kinds of things. They said. It's not what I don't
know that concerns me. It's what I know that ain't so.
And there's a lot of things we think we know
that yeah, we're not quite right about that. Need to
correct that. That's called growing up and living life, right,

(01:06:54):
It just happens, all right, Well enough philosophizing there, Give
me a call seven one three two one two kt
rh R if you want a daubon number seven one
three two one two fifty eight seventy four, be glad
to visit with you about that. I was talking earlier
about microlifs brown patch. This is the season for microlifs

(01:07:15):
brown patch. Now people see that name and they think, oh,
this is a fungicide. No, it's not a funge a side.
What it is is it's a fall fertilizer that contains
sixty three strains of beneficial microbes that fight disease. And
so when we enter this season of the year, along
with not overwatering and asking it to not rain too much,

(01:07:37):
although right now we would like a lot of rain, please, uh,
the brown patch is a disease that is also an opportunist.
Some people's yards never have brown patch, if you noticed that,
or maybe they have it. It's a really bad weather
year to promote brown patch. I may have a little bit.
Other people is like all the time. Well, it's all

(01:07:57):
the time in yards where you're over foring and over
watering and pushing the long lawn along that way, you're
creating brown patch heaven, and so brown patch obliges and
shows up microlife brown patch a gradual release of the
right ratio of nutrients and also all of those beneficial microbes.
That's the package you're putting out. That's the organic approach

(01:08:19):
to dealing with this disease. Cultural number one, microlife brown
patch number two. Those are very important, and you're gonna
find microlife products all over the place. You can go
to microlifefertilizer dot com to find out where you get them,
or you could just go to a good independent garden center,
you know, feeds stores, ace hardware stores, and of course
Southwest Fertilizer they have everything and you're going to find

(01:08:42):
microlife products there. There you go a lot of people
are not aware of just how beneficial these microbes were
dealing with are. You know, if I were to say
a bacteria or a fungus, you know the automatically think,
oh disease. Well yeah, they're disease causing ones. But those

(01:09:04):
are the minority. Did you know that most bacteria and
fungi and other things like that are just not a
problem on a particular plant you have. You know, you
may have a rosebush, you may have a micro lawn
Saint Augustine lawn. Uh and each each plant has its diseases,

(01:09:24):
but most things aren't aren't a bothered for it, And
in nature, there's a balance which keep think about this.
If we had to go put a fungicide everywhere all
the time to keep everything alive, how would there ever
be a forest or a meadow or a jungle anywhere
in the world. Well, it's because there's a battle going
out there in nature, and with the proper care and conditions,

(01:09:45):
you just don't see major problems on most things. All right, Well,
we can continue on that a little bit later. Perhaps
time for me to take a break. I'll be right back.
So this is a group called the Lemonhead. Yeah it's
not Simon and Garthlands. But that's pretty clear, isn't it.
The Lemonheads. I'm playing that in memory of Randy Lemon today.

(01:10:07):
I just thought it's time to pull out the Lemonheads.
I know, we got a lot of Lemonheads out there.
We all loved Randy and it was certainly a huge
loss to lose him. Randy and I first met in
the dorms at Moses Hall, Texas in and we lived
in the same dorm way back in the day. So
I knew Randy before Randy knew Garden Line. And I

(01:10:28):
tell you, Randy was He was an adomitable spirit and
quite the character as all of you know. So I
just saw a song just to remember again our friend Randy.
You are listening to Garden line seven one three two
one two five eight seven four. The folks at Intended
Forest have got everything. They have everything you need for fall.

(01:10:48):
You know, you don't chuse. You want pumpkins, and you
want moms and things like that. It's time to plant
fall vegetables. It's time plant fall herbs. They are set
up like crazy with all of those. They carry more
salvias than just anybody I know. It's an excellent time
to get out there and get any kind of perna,
including a salvia planet. So go by there. They also
have camellias, you know camellias. We have two types primarily

(01:11:11):
that we grow here. One is Comilla susanka. That's the
one that blooms more typically in the late fall, early winter,
December kind of season up to then, and so I
say October to December. It's more of a kind of
a single flower, single ish at least flower, and it's

(01:11:34):
a little smaller, and it's one that puts up with
a little more sun. And then the Japonicas they kick
off in December and then go on into spring and
they have larger flowers. And boy, I tell you that
a camellia bloom is just perfect. You just look at one.
It's like seeing the perfect grows. It's just beautiful. So
the Japanica blooms are a little larger. It does like

(01:11:55):
a little more shade of bright shade compared to sussanqua.
So I talk about designing a landscape that looks good
all year. There you go. You got your winter bloom
season of these plants, and you can get them at
where at Entented Forest done in Richmond Rosenberg. The if
you go south of fifty nine FM twenty seven fifty

(01:12:19):
nine is what Intented Forest is located on. Or just
make it easy on yourself, go to the website Entented
Forest Rechimond, TX dot com. Let's set out to spring
and talk to Jim. Hey Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 21 (01:12:33):
Good morning, Skip.

Speaker 22 (01:12:34):
How are you.

Speaker 6 (01:12:37):
Doing well? Thanks?

Speaker 8 (01:12:40):
Skip?

Speaker 21 (01:12:41):
I sent you some pictures on a morning glory that
is showing me some signs of I don't know what.
That's why I sent the pictures to you. Time I
cuggled up leaves and such. Yeah, Okay, huh, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:12:53):
I sure did so what well, did did you use
any kind of a weed control in your lawn around
those or do you think someone in that back area
behind them would have sprayed something like a two fort
dy or something to kill broad leaf weeds.

Speaker 21 (01:13:14):
There's a possibility we back right up to the spring
greenway and the hoa does some stuff back there. Not
really paid a lot of attention to them. I mostly
seem to expect their mouth the grass.

Speaker 6 (01:13:27):
Yeah, well, it's a little bit of a long shot,
but do some of the symptoms look like that. If
they're not that, then there's some kind of an insect
with piercing, sucking mouth parts, and when those leaves were
young coming out, it stuck its mouth in like a
mosquito sticks its mouth into us. But it injects a
little bit of a thing that causes a malformation of

(01:13:49):
the growth, and so as that leaf develops, it develops
buckled or twisted or whatever. It's similar to a two
forty kind of damage. Not exactly the same, but it's
one of the you the herbicides. The long shot, I
think it is just an insect feeding thing. And at
this point, those morning glories are about to be toast

(01:14:09):
when when the first prostitutes, So I wouldn't worry about
trying to spram with anything. Who knows, next year you
may not even have a problem with this. But even
this year you've got so many good leaves that it
did not affect the blooming, the bloom production of those
morning glories. So I'm not going to even recommend inseexicide
for next year.

Speaker 21 (01:14:30):
All right, We'll see see what it looks like next year.

Speaker 6 (01:14:34):
Okay, that's it works for me, Like I say, we can.
We can leave that problem behind and go work on
world peace and world hunger. How about that?

Speaker 21 (01:14:42):
Yeah, I'm I'm gonna send you some problems I'm having
with our bird of Paradise.

Speaker 8 (01:14:46):
Yeah, get you all right?

Speaker 6 (01:14:47):
Send them on, Send them on, glad, glad to have
you appreciate that Nelson plant Food has. Someone called me
earlier and was asking about carbelow. They were saying, what's
that one from Nelson that has a herbicide it? Well,
it's carb load. Carbo Load is a ten ten twenty,
got that high potassium we like to see in the fall.
A ten ten twenty fertilizer in a purple bag. I

(01:15:08):
think that would stand out right anybody from LSU here,
it's LSU purple for crying out loud. There you go.
Car Oh gosh, if Dean heard that, Dean, we got
to talk. We need to work on the color of
that bag. Anyway, Dean's a big agg caam carbo load
has a pre emergent herbicide in it, and the pre
emergent herbicide goes into the soil prevents we growth. You

(01:15:32):
don't hear me recommend weed and feeds anytime of the
year except right now. Right in October is the time
to feed and a time to put a pre emergent
herbicide out. So this product works. It's a good one
for this time of the year. From the folks at Nelson. Hey,
Nelson's a family owned Texas brand. You know, the Nelson
family has been in Katie since the late eighteen hundreds.
So you're looking for a good fertilizer from a local family,

(01:15:55):
made locally, that would be Nelson Fertilizers, like this carbo load.
We're gonna we're gonna go to a break here in
just a minute. Oh, I wanted to I wanted to
mention something I was talking about Ciena Mault earlier and
I forgot to mention this Ciena Malts is really set
up as a cool little shop to visit.

Speaker 8 (01:16:14):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:16:15):
You know, they've got the little store inside where you
would normally check out things like pottery and the shrooms.
Those are those shroomies. They're the little decorative porcelain like
mushrooms that you put out for decorating the yard. They
got leather goods. They got something called a smart pot
that's those felt those very thick felt type pots that

(01:16:36):
you can grow in. Really they work too. They're really
good local honey soaps, candles, lotions, even harvest baskets. You're
gonna find seeds. They get seeds from David Seed out
in San Antonio that they have there, and they also
have a nice selection of some quality tools from am Leonard,
which is a good brand. So it's a one stop
shop there. You're gonna get your soils, you're gonna get

(01:16:56):
your maultas, you're gonna get everything you need for the
brown stock so that your plans can be happy. Also,
as you drive in, check out the metal yard art
that they've got out there. They got some really cool
stuff and vego beds. They sell those, but you can
see them set up. When you drive in and say,
what is a vego bed, We'll go to see in
them all. Take a look at them. They got them there,

(01:17:17):
they're planted. You'll see them, and I think you're gonna
like them too. Cianamulch dot com. Go to the website
find out everything else you need to know, Siena Mulch
dot com. Let's see, Susan. I'm gonna take you a
little early. I think we probably got about a minute here,
but let's see if we can get started, and then
we'll hold over for the next hour.

Speaker 13 (01:17:38):
I skipped good morning. This is a quick question about
a friend getting me some saffron crocuscorns and I've never
had them. I said I wanted them, and so I
have a raised like a waist high raids above ground
bed with wonderful soil on the sit in there. Well,
they I mean, they said we're gonna have like a lamina.

Speaker 11 (01:17:57):
Is it gonna not get really cold?

Speaker 13 (01:17:59):
So you think that they say the plan in September
hill middle October.

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
Yeah, they'll be fine. I would I would do I
would do it now. I wouldn't have done it in September,
but you could do it now. Uh, and get them
in the ground. They'll go through winter there. The crocus
are like highest. Some of the hyacinth and the tulips
are kind of one shot wonders for us. They don't
turn naturally for us because of our climate. But not

(01:18:24):
get them on the ground. Yeah, good time to do it.
If you do it later in this month too, it's fine.

Speaker 9 (01:18:30):
Is that the same thing from a scarrym scary is
like a little tiny hyacinth, and it actually will grow here.

Speaker 6 (01:18:41):
Most people when they think hyacinth, they think those big
old things that are three inches across and you know,
fine inches high or something, those kind of highest thin
they're the ones that are one shot wonders, a scary,
a little gray hyacinth. Their weeds come come up all.

Speaker 19 (01:18:57):
I love that though.

Speaker 8 (01:18:59):
Awesome.

Speaker 21 (01:19:00):
Now there you go.

Speaker 6 (01:19:02):
Hey, thanks for the call. Glad we can work you
in here. All right, folks, we're going to take a break.
I'll be at Arbrogate today today twelve noon to two pm,
answering your gardening questions, looking at samples and pictures and
things helping you have success. But it's got to come
out to Arbigate. I'm telling you. They have somewhere between

(01:19:22):
eight and ten thousand plants you can't live without actually have.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
Welcome to kt r H Garden Line with Skip Richard.

Speaker 4 (01:19:37):
It's just watch him as tables sound season side, beam

(01:20:10):
and down between.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
Starting.

Speaker 6 (01:20:18):
Hey, welcome back to the guard Line on a wonderful
Saturday morning. This is gonna be a great day. I'm
looking forward to getting out and about and be at
Arburgate today from twelve to two. I hope you'll come
on out. Remember when you go to Arburgate, go around
to the back and park into the back. It is
a much bigger, better parking lot, easy safe access. It's

(01:20:41):
off of Trishel Road, so it Arburgate's right there on
twenty nine to twenty. And as you're going from the
east to the west down twenty nine to twenty toward Arburgate,
Trisha Road goes around behind Arburgate and then comes back
to twenty nine to twenty. So if you haven't seen
it and you see Arburgate, just keep driving and look
at to that side because Treasher Road is going to

(01:21:02):
be there on the other side as well, and you
just swing around back to the back. Good safe parking, wonderful,
wonderful thing. They worked a long time, very hard to
get that parking lot because it is a real gem
for customers visiting there, and it's very popular, very popular
garden center. If you have a question it would like
to give me a call. Here is the number seven

(01:21:23):
one three two one two five eight seven four seven
one three two one two five eight seven four. I'm
going to be talking today a little bit about the
drought off and on, but I just want to remind
those of you who've tuned in recently. I talked earlier
about drought and the fact that it is taking a

(01:21:43):
toll on our plants, our lawns, our trees, our shrubs.
It kind of snuck up on me just not paying
attention to the to the weather and things, and how
long it had been since it rained. It's been a
long time. Some of you had some rain here and there,
but for a lot of the listening area, like where
I am at my house, I think in September and

(01:22:05):
October total, I've had under a half inch of rain
for two months of hot weather. You know, September is
a summer month, very hard on the lawns. Stress of
the lawns opens the door for diseases, hard on trees
opens the door for certain kinds of disease, especially on
many types of oak decidrous oak trees. We see a

(01:22:25):
large problem with the apoxlon canker, which is a stress.
Stresses open the door. Drought stress opens the door for
hapoxl and canker, among other stresses. Nelson Water Gardens and
Nurseries out there in Katie, Texas. You know, you go
out to Katie and you head out to u Katie

(01:22:47):
Fort Ben Road and you turn north and just go
up the street a little bit, and you were there
at Nelson Nursery and water Gardens, And boy, is it
ever a nice place when when you go in there,
first first thing you're gonna notice is a sound of water,
which is addictively wonderful, very very cool stuff. Uh this
the uh ye you're gonna want to put one of

(01:23:08):
their dis spring fountains or have them come in and
build the you know, the whole waterfall kind of rock
waterfall type thing there. If you want to make your
own dis spring fountain, they'll sell you the pieces and parts,
the nice beautiful pottery and the pumps and all that,
and they'll tell you how to do it and you
can take it home and do it. They now have
the Microlife and Nelson uh self service fertilizer station. So

(01:23:31):
what that means, it's a refill station. So let's say
you buy a jar of Microlife or a jar of
the Nelson products and you finish it. You bring your
jar back in there and you just pull the handle
like you're buying peanuts at the grocery store. Refill that jar.
It's a much more it's economical, and it also avoids
throwing away plastic into the environment. So there they got that.

(01:23:52):
Now at Nelson Nursery and Water Gardens, of course they
got plants and all kinds of things for fall.

Speaker 7 (01:23:57):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:23:58):
They are set up. They even have a little place
there decorated with pumpkins and haydales and some skeletons where
your kid hosts can take pictures or you, if you
want to, can take some Halloween and fall type pictures there.
That's kind of cool too, Katie fort Benroad uh. And
here is the website Nilsonwatergardens dot com. Nilson Watergardens dot com.

(01:24:22):
Appreciate that I was out at Nature's Way Resources on
last Saturday and thanks to everybody that came out there.
We had a really good time. There's a lot of
folks and you guys wore me out. I don't know
what time I got out of there, but it was
it was. It was a lot of fun. We were
answering questions and giving away a lot of cool stuff,

(01:24:45):
and it was just it was just a nice thing
to do. Now, the Nature's Way has their rosol. They
have their leaf moll compost, which, by the way, the
leaf moles now available by bulk at Central Rock and
mulch which is at it and Yale Street on the
north north of downtown Houston.

Speaker 7 (01:25:03):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:25:03):
That that's only the leaf more compost by boat, but
it is available by both there. But you're going to
find Nature's Way products by the bag and various places
around town.

Speaker 8 (01:25:11):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:25:11):
And especially the new mulch. Is it's time to refinish
or replenish your surface mulch. Remember you don't take the
old mulch away. That's just when it's getting good and
about to be soiled again. You just put the fresh
new mulch on top of it and just put several
inches of there. They've got all kinds of different mulches,
different particle sizes, different types of mulch at Nature's Way

(01:25:34):
Resources go to the website Nature'sway Resources dot Com. That
that's sort of the grandfather place when it comes to soils.
They've been around a long time and they have made
an impact in many ways. John Ferguson started at his
son Liam Neeson D Neeson. I hope Lillams Liam Ferguson.

(01:25:59):
I think I've watched too many taken movies. Liam Ferguson
is running the place now and it's the same quality,
same cool stuff. Nature's Way Research up toward tomball On off.
I let's go to the phones now. We're going to
talk to Cad in Cyprus. Hey, Ked, good moments are

(01:26:21):
how are you? I'm doing good? How can we help today?

Speaker 23 (01:26:26):
Well, I'm getting ready to move into a new home
and they're going to be putting down the sad probably
in the next week or so.

Speaker 22 (01:26:35):
And unfortunately, I'm somewhat of a.

Speaker 23 (01:26:40):
Grass snob.

Speaker 22 (01:26:45):
I guess the other house I lived in, it were
there for like twenty five years, and my grass was
like a carpet.

Speaker 15 (01:26:52):
It was nice.

Speaker 22 (01:26:54):
Yeah, yeah, blush green.

Speaker 23 (01:26:57):
And I have no idea how to deal with Bermuda
because my new neighborhood does.

Speaker 22 (01:27:03):
Not allow Saint Augustine. So my question is do I
need to all right, do I need to buy a
new mower?

Speaker 23 (01:27:10):
And how do you know?

Speaker 22 (01:27:11):
Do you have a guide to take care of bermuda grass?

Speaker 6 (01:27:15):
Yeah, here's here's what here's what you need to know.
By the way, you're what I call a lawn ranger.
We've got lawn rangers out there and they they've got
the LUNs that make the golf course a shamed So congratulations,
I'm a little nervous. Okay, no problem, it's no Bermuda
is easy.

Speaker 24 (01:27:35):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:27:36):
The only thing bermuda doesn't like in our landscapes is shade.
And if you've got a new place out there and
don't have a lot of giant trees or bermuda is
going to be fine. In time, as it gets shadier
and shadier, the bermuda struggles. What you want to do
is mow it often. Don't let it go a long
long time between mowings, because when you mow bermuda, unlike

(01:27:56):
Saint Augustine, which is green all the way to the ground,
bermuda is kind of green on top. And if you
were to let it get let's say you let it
get three inches high and cut it to two inch
and a half or two inches, it would look very
brown and twiggy, and then it would refill in green again.
But you're cutting off the top, the green top. So
the more often you mow Bermuda, the better it looks.

(01:28:18):
If you want, you can mow it super low, but
it requires mowing much more frequently, and it's just bigger challenge.
So I would say probably with Bermuda, an inch and
a half to two inches would be a pretty good
height for Bermuda and just mow but once a week
or if you do it a little more often, it's

(01:28:39):
even fine. But Bermuda will be just fine. Fertilize it
kind of like my schedule shows. It'll use quite a
bit of fertilizer to look at its very best, and
water deeply and infrequently. But main thing on Bermuda is
the mowing schedule. That's the most important thing, all right, okay, And.

Speaker 22 (01:29:00):
That I can just use it just my regular mower.
I don't have to buy something special.

Speaker 6 (01:29:04):
I guess no you don't. But when you get down
real low, a real type mower is better. Like a
golf course screen. You could never cut that with a
propeller blade. Mower like every buy uses in their lawns.
But it's a real type. But you can also use
a real type. Real types are used and a lot
of places are used on football fields and golf fairways

(01:29:25):
and things. So you could buy one and use that
and it would make a nice clean cut on your lawn.
It would look great. But do you if you mow
it at two inches, you really don't have to have
that real type more. You just need a good sharp blade.

Speaker 8 (01:29:40):
Okay, good fantastic. Thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 6 (01:29:44):
Good luck when you get it all pretty, you send
me a picture of your new lawn. Appreciate your colleage.
Thanks all right, bye bye. Wild Birds Unlimited is the
place you go to get everything you need for birds.
I'm going to tell you a little bit about some
of the things going on in birds in a bit
when we come back from break. But just know this,

(01:30:06):
we're our hummingbirds are making their pilgrimage on South and
so as we get to the end of this month,
they're going to be heading out. But leave out a
few of your feeders because we do have the rufous
hummingbird that often hangs out here in the Houston area
over the winter, So leave a few feeders out and
keep them around and enjoy them. In the meantime, head

(01:30:28):
out to wild birds. It's season now where we're going
in to the cool season. I'm going to talk a
little bit about the feeds that they provide for birds
when we come right back. All righty, welcome back to gardening.

Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
So you have you with us.

Speaker 6 (01:30:44):
When we went to break, I was talking about wild
birds unlimited and wildbirds unlimited. If I'm at the the
hummingbirds and they're where they are in terms of migration
and things like that, but we're kind of in a
lull in wilbirds and them, and now we've got we're
going to be getting a bunch of more birds. But
things are kind of slower at the feeders. They are

(01:31:06):
at my feeders, and it's a good time to take
those things down and clean them up. You know, it
does help to clean those up. You get some seeds
in there, they get a little bit of wet on them,
and it's just nasty. And so get them all cleaned
up and ready to go. Because here's what's here's what
is going to be happening. The number of different bird
species we're going to start seeing here the yellow rump
warblers and orange crown warblers. Both of those, the ruby

(01:31:28):
crown kinglets will be coming in soon, so you want
to have some of the standard things that will Birds
Unlimited carries the Winter super Blend. It's time for it again.
We hadn't talked about it for a long time, but
it's time to get the Winter super Blend back out
there because with as the days get shorter and shorter
our bird feet, the number of hours birds have to

(01:31:49):
feed is decreasing, and it's important for them to get
a good quality feed that's you know, high fat, high
protein to prepare them for these the winter season that
we're going into there. So it's time to get that done.
I'll talk about other feeds that birds love, and anything
that they like is that Wildbird's Unlimited. And if you
want a quality feed that actually gives you the most

(01:32:11):
bang for your buck, you're not going to find a
better place than wild Birds Unlimited. They're six stores in Kingwood,
clear Lake, Pearland, one on Houston and bel Ara, another
one on Memorial. Cyprus has a wild Bird's Unlimited store
as well. Go to WBU dot com forward Slash Houston
to find your local wild Birds Unlimited stores, and don't

(01:32:32):
forget talk the talk to them about becoming a member
of the Daily Savings Club. You get fifteen percent off
all bird food all the time, and you also earn
bird Bucks at wild Birds Unlimited. Let's head out to
Fairfield now and we're going to talk to Marty this morning.
Hello Marty, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 8 (01:32:52):
Good morning, Skip, thank you. I have a question.

Speaker 24 (01:32:56):
I am considering pulling out my twenty five year old
live oaks for safety purposes, but I was thinking I
might want to replace with either a Japanese red maple
or my neighbors have them, and or I know you
like the Chinese fringe, but I've never seen one in person.

(01:33:19):
Do you have any other recommendations that will be diseased free?
Or somebody recommends cedar elm and American sycamore, and I
don't like the sound.

Speaker 14 (01:33:31):
Of the bugs that get them.

Speaker 6 (01:33:35):
Okay, yeah, I wouldn't do the sycamore for that reason.
But the cedar elm is tough. It's not a you know,
it does get a little bit of the lace bug
on it. It's just a tough tree. But the Japanese
maple is a very small tree compared to all these
others we're talking about. It likes a morning sun if
you get the kind. There's sort of two types of

(01:33:56):
Japanese maple. One the leaf looks on most like maple
leaf or sycamore leaf, you know that look to it.
The other kind has really thread like leaves, like if
you open your hand and look at your fingers going
out there, you know, thin finger going out in all
the directions. It's it's more of a thread leaf type maple.
I find the thread leaves to be harder. They they

(01:34:17):
brown easier, and on Japanese maple they get a little dry,
they get in too much sun and you start to
see that tip browning on them. So I don't know
exactly the location, but if you put, if you know
the loss of the tree you're taking out leaves them
in just the brun a full sun, it's gonna be
a little bit more challenging to get those to stay
looking good. But it is an option, and I still

(01:34:40):
like the the Chinese fringe tree. It's a good one.
It's a medium size tree. What I'll try to do,
you'd send me an email and I will I will
try to send you a picture of a Chinese fringe
or you know what, just just go online to a search.
It'd be sure that way. Just do a search for them.
Their medium size I must say, maybe maybe twenty feet

(01:35:03):
in a long time, but in general they're going to
be a little smaller not and a nice shaggy white
ballooms that have a nice fragrance in the spring.

Speaker 24 (01:35:11):
Do you have any other recommendations on any.

Speaker 6 (01:35:17):
Are we looking for blooms or what? What are the
goals on other options here?

Speaker 24 (01:35:23):
Well, underneath it's it's over the years has become a
shade gardens with hostas, lots of hostas, ferns, ivies, ashi
as familiars. I have so many I can't even name
them all, but most of them are shade.

Speaker 11 (01:35:41):
So I think it's going to take a while to
get that.

Speaker 13 (01:35:45):
I understand that.

Speaker 6 (01:35:49):
Yeah, yeah, oh, so you're wanting to treat that creates
shade for those other plants, right, yeah, you're saying that, okay, yeah,
so well, redbuds are a spring bloomer. There's some beautiful
red buds. By the way, there's flame thrower that has beautiful,
like the name implies, reddish colored new growth coming out.

(01:36:13):
There's one and I can never remember the name, but
it has like a sunset or sunrise in the name
that starts off. In fact, if you're out at the
arbor gate, they've got one next to the little out
in front of the little gift shop out there across
the way, and it's the name is escaping me. But
it's very pretty because you get the orange and the

(01:36:33):
yellow and then the green and stuff to it, and
so even though it's not blooming, it's a pretty tree.
And red buds can be semi understory. They don't want
to be in deep shade, but they they will make
a nice little tree. Not super long lived, but they're
a nice option.

Speaker 24 (01:36:50):
Not an understory. I'm not talking about understory. This is
going to be like the main trees in the on the.

Speaker 8 (01:36:57):
North side of the house in full sun.

Speaker 6 (01:37:01):
Okay, well, redbug can do that if you keep them watered,
if you don't let them dry out, they'll they'll be
fine for that. And so I would just suggest getting
one that offers the features of some color in the
foliage in addition to the spring blooms that you get
out of them. Yeah, gosh, there's so many trees that
could fit that bill. When you're going to grow things

(01:37:23):
under them. Sometimes a dapple shade is better, and so
things that don't cast as deep of a shade. Now, now,
Chinese elms are large trees in time, but they cast
a fairly light shade, so that would be kind of
nice for growing things under them. And there's other things
like oh gosh, Palo Verde Desert Museum, Palo Verde, but

(01:37:47):
that would create a very different look.

Speaker 9 (01:37:49):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:37:50):
There you've got a paloverti in a hasta and those
That's like putting a cactus next to an azalea. So
it's kind of a weird combination.

Speaker 14 (01:37:58):
All right, Okay, all right, well I will go look
those up.

Speaker 25 (01:38:02):
And you say the Chinese elm.

Speaker 16 (01:38:04):
I didn't catch y'all.

Speaker 6 (01:38:06):
Yes, yeah, the Chinese elm. Sometimes they are called drake
elm because that's the main variety that gets sold. They
have the bark do a google starch on it. The
bark is kind of a gray and it exfoliates into
kind of a rusty orange color patches. It's very kind

(01:38:28):
of different, so it also has a little yeah but there,
you see them all over town. You just don't know
what you're seeing. Typically they'll use them in a like
a mall, parking lot or something where you need a
tree that can take those kind of good Okay.

Speaker 14 (01:38:41):
All right Martin, Okay, all right, Well I appreciate your heart.

Speaker 8 (01:38:44):
Have a good day.

Speaker 6 (01:38:45):
By bye, you bet bye bye. Take care. Yeah. I'm
going to be at the arbor Gate today and I'll
be there from twelve to two. But you know the
arbor Gate is it is a gardener's gardening center. I
mean people come from a long way. It's a mile
and a half west of two forty nine on twenty
nine to twenty. While you're out there, leave some room
in the car for plants, and also grab some of

(01:39:07):
their one two three completely easy system for the soil
that is a food and organic food for anything with roots.
That is a soil that also contains expanded shale which
helps in our clay soils. And then an organic compost
which also contains expanded shale. The latter two the organic
soil complete, the organic compost complete. You can have them

(01:39:28):
deliver it bulk wherever you live, if you want to
go that route, you can do that, or you can
just buy it by the bag right there at Arburgate,
but definitely leave some room, because I promise you you're
going to in fact get a goose Neck trailer or
rent of you haul. You're going to see that much
stuff that you can't live without when you go to
the Arborgate a mile and a half west of two
forty nine on twenty nine to twenty come out today

(01:39:49):
and see me. I'll be there from twelve to twelve
noon to two pm. And remember to park in the
back lots of park and there's gonna be a lot
of folks there today. You want to get there, so
park in the back at the arbor Gate. I was
talking earlier about ACE and how it's the place to
go for everything from decorations to safety things. ACE is

(01:40:10):
also the place to go for these fall fertilizers and
disease control and weed control and insect control that we
have in our yards. Go to ACE Hardware Texas dot
com and you can find the ACE near you. ACE
is like All Star ACE and Magnolia kN M and
Kingwood on Kingwood Drive, Port Lavaca, ACE on Calhoun Plaza,

(01:40:32):
and then in Katie on Penoak Road and Old Town
Katie there's also Katie ACE out there. Take a break.
We'll be right back where did you find.

Speaker 3 (01:40:42):
Strange than men heard that?

Speaker 6 (01:40:48):
That's a lot. Hey, welcome back to Guardenline. Good to
have you with us. Uh, we are looking forward to
visiting with you. What is your question? How can we
help you have a more bountiful garden, a more beautiful landscape,
and more fun in the process of doing that? Give
me a call it seven to one three two, one two,
five eight seven four seven one three two one two

(01:41:11):
fifty eight seventy four. Will be glad to visit with you.
I'm talking about some earlier I sande'son talking about some
things that are important for this time of year to
keep in mind. Uh, And a couple of things. You
are probably noticing a lot of plants are dropping leaves,

(01:41:31):
and that can be alarming. Well, one of the causes
is a lack of water. Of course, right it gets
droughty and plant's gonna have to cast those leaves off
until it gets water again. But it's not just it's
not just a drought type issue. As we get toward
the end of a season, plants often will cast off

(01:41:52):
their leaves as we start getting closer to fall. And
I just noticed that. You know, let's take cypress for example,
cypress are tough, does well in the area, but if
we get into a little dry spell in the summer,
it'll turn bronze and drop leaves and then re sprout
again in the fall. That's not unusual. But it's not
unusual to see some leaves coming off of trees. It's

(01:42:13):
not the end of the world if they start dropping
them a little bit early. A significant drop a struggling tree, absolutely,
But there are other plants that I see dropping some
of the leaves and people get real alarmed. And they
also get alarmed because when the leaves drop, they see
diseases on the leaves, and so they're thinking the disease

(01:42:33):
made this drop. My trees in trouble, I got to
spray it. Most problems that we're doing most this isn't
like everything in your yard, garden, landscape. This is true,
But most things we had a point in the fall
where it's not worth spraying. It is not worth protecting.
The plant's going to be just fine. So for example,

(01:42:56):
if you've got a tree and there's a caterpillar up
in the tree and it's eating leaves right now, I
wouldn't spray it. I mean, what are you going to
do if you kill every caterpillar, how much good is
that going to do the tree? Because the leads you
are about to fall off anyway, So to think about that,
that is often the case. And when leaves get weakened
and the tree is about to cast them and it's

(01:43:19):
sort of cutting off the supply to the leaves, they're
more likely to get some leaf spots the things they've
been fending off. That old leaf that's kind of losing
some of its resources is more susceptible. So yeah, when
the leaf falls it's got spots on it. That doesn't
mean you needed to spread fundicide on the whole plant
to protect against that. So just some thoughts there, But

(01:43:40):
I don't want to fail to remind you again that
with the drought that most of my listening area has
been having here, we need to give a good deep
soaking because that does matter. You want your trees to
not be to a drought stressed stage. You want your
shrubs to not be to a drought stressed stage. You

(01:44:00):
want your lawns also to not go into drought stress
because that invites a lot of issues that we do
not want to invite. Hey, if you got to Tomball
about three miles west on Highway west of Highway two
forty nine on twenty nine twenty is D and D
Feeds on the left hand side as you go out there.

(01:44:21):
This store has been around since gosh, I think nineteen
eighty nine, and it is a great feed store of
number one. It carries all these products that you need
for your lawn and your landscape, things from nitrofoss products,
from Microlife, a Nelson turf star line, Medina products, and
the canisters, the jars, the clear jars, the big screw

(01:44:42):
top lids of Nelson plant Food and Microlife as well.
They carry the azamite, they carry, oh, the heirloom soils,
the airloom soils by the bag are available there at
D and D Feed and Supply.

Speaker 15 (01:44:57):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:44:57):
If you're looking for quality pet foods, they also have
those as well, and everything else that you would expect
from a feedstore. When you're looking for certain kinds of
insect disease and we controlled that kind of hard to
find around town. D and D Feed probably has them.
They have an excellent selection of those products that work
very well, but they're just not as commonly available around

(01:45:19):
the area. By the way, if you want to give
them a call two eight one three five one seventy
one forty four two eight one three five one seventy
one forty four, go ahead and do that.

Speaker 8 (01:45:35):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:45:35):
In fact, I'm going to stop in there late today
on my way home from being down in the easter
Scenario'm going to stop it by there just to say hi,
see what's going on. I always like to check in
on my sponsors as often as I can, and I
happen to be in the area, it is a great
time to stop in and do that. I like to
see what they're carrying because I got to stay up
to date, right So if you are interested in giving

(01:45:58):
us a call seven to one to three two one
two five eight seven four seven one three two one
two fifty eight seventy four. I haven't mentioned my website.
I don't think all day to day. I try to
mention it every time because there's a lot of stuff
on there that you're gonna want to see. Right now,
you're going to find my lawn care schedule. That's the

(01:46:19):
mow water, fertilize, uh, do aeration, apply micronutrient, those kinds
of things. That's a how to grow a lawn schedule.
The lawn care schedule and also the lawn pest, weed
and disease insect control schedule. That is another one that's there,
and both of these have organic options and synthetic options.

(01:46:41):
So whichever way you want to go, they're going to
have the information you need to have success. Now, if
you come out to Arbrogate, I'm gonna have those on
hand with me. I'll just hind you one. It's a
two sided, full color pretty You can just go to
the website Gardening with Skip dot com. You got to
bookmark that one because you're gonna want to go back,
you know, things on and take all root roder on there.

(01:47:02):
We're going to enter the freezing season soon and how
to protect your plant publication. In fact, you have to
look at that one ahead of time so you can
get all the supplies you need to do that. But
I put a lot of things up there. Nutsedge control,
Oh gosh, what a challenge. Follow that publication I put
up and you can and you will control the nuts
edge that's in your flower beds and things. So let's

(01:47:25):
head out to meadows Place. We're going to visit with
Jim this morning. Hey, Jim, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (01:47:32):
Good, Maura Rick.

Speaker 12 (01:47:33):
Two quick questions callapenia pepper plant and tomato plant in
tin gallon containers. About two weeks ago, they both started
to wilt and I took them out, looked at the roots.
Roots looked okay. So I removed about half the soil

(01:47:56):
and replenished it with potting soil soak the bed and
roots stimulator and replanted them. They did okay for about
a week and a half, and then they started to
whee olpen them, leaves turned yellow, and they eventually died.
I'm wondering if I did something wrong or I might

(01:48:18):
have contaminated soil.

Speaker 6 (01:48:22):
Well, I can't. I can't guess at that. I need
a crystal ball on that one, Jim. A lack of
water in a container is always a possibility. Ten gallons
is a good size for a tomato, much better than five,
and so you shouldn't have to water to I said, hey,
to keep the things happy like you do in smaller containers. Yeah,

(01:48:47):
well then that should have been adequate when you pull
them up, when they start to welt and look bad,
and you kind of think I'm gonna lose this one.
If you'll pull it up and look at the roots,
and the roots are more rotted and dead than the top.
You know the words, you know, the topscot some green
kind of on it still, but the roots are gone. Well,
then you know the problem began in the soil and

(01:49:07):
it could have been a disease of some type. But
you know, just the fact that it died like that.
There are other possibilities. You know, it could have been
soggy conditions if the container didn't drain out, good, because
that'll kill roots because it can't get oxygen. Other than that,
I just don't know. Let's see where you're.

Speaker 14 (01:49:31):
On the player.

Speaker 8 (01:49:32):
I mean, the pops is checked just to be probably.

Speaker 6 (01:49:36):
Not No, probably probably not because the diseases that it
would be or verticillium and fusarium and neither of those
are the little fungicide you buy are not going to
work on those.

Speaker 8 (01:49:47):
So okay.

Speaker 12 (01:49:48):
And second question that okay. For fertilization, you're recommending the
three step with the winter riser and the barricade, but
you also recommend carpoload, which has the pre emergen it,
So which is better?

Speaker 15 (01:50:01):
You don't do both?

Speaker 6 (01:50:02):
Right, No, sir, it's two different companies, Nelson and nitrophos.
If you go in nitrovis, you're going to do the
three step fertilizer and the barricade. Okay uh, and if
you do Nelson the carbel load. The purple bag has
those both put together. In fact, it's the same active
ingredient as a weed preventor as the barricade and the

(01:50:23):
and the carbon. No, they're both good. Both of them
are excellent products.

Speaker 8 (01:50:31):
Every one can be used. Okay, all right.

Speaker 6 (01:50:33):
If I didn't, if I didn't believe there were good products, yeah,
they If I didn't think there were good products, I
wouldn't talk about them on my on my show.

Speaker 12 (01:50:40):
So that they both so it's my choice on nose.

Speaker 19 (01:50:43):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:50:45):
There you go. That's it, yes, sir, And everybody's got
their preferences. So there you go. Hey, Jim, thanks appreciate,
appreciate that call very much. Airloom Soils. Airloom Soils has
got you covered on bags of soil, the solda all
over the region. They got you covered on bulk. Whether
you want it in a supersac or dumped in your driveway,
they can do that. They carry the excellent mixes. You know,

(01:51:08):
they've got a great veggie and herb mix. You know,
They've got the leaf mole compost for those you want
to do some top dressing and things. They got that.
They also have a lawn mix that's really good for
kind of smoothing things out, filling in some holes and things.
Then you can go get them out in porter. You
can have them deliver it to you. Just go to
airloomsols dot com, airloomsols dot com and make sure that

(01:51:30):
you find the one you need because they're all there
and they're widely sold all through the area. Not hard
to find airloom Sols products at all here in the
greater Houston area. In Chennick Gardens out there in Richmond Rosenberg.
It's just an excellent place. I love going there.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
The team.

Speaker 6 (01:51:47):
You're not going to find a friendlier group of people
to come out and to greet you and to point
you in the right direction. They know their stuff. Here's
the website and you really need to put this down.
Sign up for the newsletter. Find out more about them
there Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com. Enchanted Gardens Richmond dot com.

(01:52:08):
Whether you're looking for fall items, you know the pumpkins.
I got their pumpkin house going right now. Of whether
you're looking for moms or other fall types of colors
and decorations, or if you're ready to plant your vegetable garden,
or if you want to put in herbs, falls the
best time to put in herbs, or if you want
trees and shrubs and roses and you name it, it's

(01:52:28):
all there. It's all there. Ornamental grasses too. At enchanted
gardens out there in Richmond, you're going to find the
things you need to make the brown stuff right. The
soil that's microlife, nitropas Nelson plant food medina, soils from
both Nature's way and heirloom soils there and in Chended
gardens in Richmond, in Chenned Gardens Richmond dot com. On

(01:52:50):
the KD Foster side of Richmond on FM three fifty nine,
I gotta take a little break and I will be
back in just a moment. Alrighty, all right, we're back. Look,
guarden line, good to have you with us. A lot
of your lawns are looking the worst for the wear
this summer, you know, drought inch bugs take our root rod,

(01:53:10):
just the wear and tear, a piti patter of little
feet and things like that. If you want to do
something to really give your lawna boost. The folks at
B and B turf Pros can get you set up. Now,
what they're gonna do is they're gonna come out and
they're gonna do a core aeration. They're going to follow
that with a compost top dressing. These folks only use

(01:53:30):
the best products that I recommend here on guard Line.
So for example, their compost top dressing comes from Sienamltch
just down the road from them down there. Uh and
Delocity Fertilization. They you can just turn your yard over
them and they will make it look really, really nice.
They care about a personal connection with their clients. They
want you to be happy and that shows and the
kind of reviews that they get. They're gonna cover the

(01:53:53):
area from Sugarland and Missouri City all the way down
across Interstate forty five. You know, League City and Dickinson.
You're in the area too. Over there lots of area
that they cover. It costs about five hundred dollars to
do the compost top dressing after the core and the
core aeration together.

Speaker 1 (01:54:08):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:54:08):
But the price varies depending on how far they have
to go and how big your yard is. Of course,
I's a lot cheaper than putting in a new yard.
I can tell you that the website BB no end,
BB turf Pros dot com, bbturf Pros dot Com. The
phone number seven one three two three four fifty five
ninety eight seven one three two three four five five

(01:54:29):
nine eight. We're going to go to Robert now in Pinehurst. Hey, Robert,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 17 (01:54:33):
Hey, good morning, Good morning sir.

Speaker 7 (01:54:35):
How are you doing good?

Speaker 6 (01:54:37):
Good? How can I help today?

Speaker 17 (01:54:40):
Well, my question is about five years ago, I installed
a lot of raised beds in my backyard, had about
three thousand square feet of backyard. I just you know,
got a little board, and I guess I wanted to
start the gardening and learning about all that stuff. So
I'm kind of a novice at but anyway, I moved

(01:55:03):
one of my raised beds. I built a us stone
and whatnot. Anyway, I moved it and I noticed I
hadn't about eighteen inches or so. I noticed the bottom
probably twelve to fourteen inches, was very sandy and loose.
And when I built it, I put a lot of

(01:55:26):
organic matter and you know, mulches and composts, and I really.

Speaker 8 (01:55:32):
Tried to enrich the soil.

Speaker 6 (01:55:33):
The best I could.

Speaker 17 (01:55:34):
But but then I started thinking, is that something because
I didn't see any more organic matter in the bottom
of the bed.

Speaker 8 (01:55:42):
So should I rotate.

Speaker 15 (01:55:43):
Those every couple of years?

Speaker 6 (01:55:46):
Just put fresh Just put fresh stuff in. You can
mix stuff in with a spade and fork or whatever.
Organic matter goes away. That's why a container in your
patio was full one year and two years later it's
only half full of soil. It goes away. That's a
good thing. That's what nature does. But yeah, you can
just replenish it and mix some fresh composts down into
the soil. That'll work just fine.

Speaker 17 (01:56:08):
And how far would I go? Like I said, I'm
kind of a novice. My mind tells me I'm trying
to see what's going on in the bottom of the bed.

Speaker 6 (01:56:16):
But I will go all the way down to the bottom. Yeah,
I go down the bottom. And if you want to
break with a spading part, break up a little bit.
That soil below is even even better because that creates
a smoother transition between the native soil and the ground
and the bed mix that you put in. I've got
a line of callers here. I'm gonna try to get
to Robert, but I think you're off on the right track.

(01:56:39):
And just remember just about ever two or three years
you can do a little replenishing and it'll bring that
soil level back up in the beds too. But you're
on the right track being raised beds. Yeah, appreciate your call.
Thank you very much. Knight FoST Texas. Three steps someone
was asking about a minute ago. It's real simple. It's
the winter riser, the barricade, and the Eagle turf Fungicide

(01:57:02):
night of Foss fall Special Winter Riser, night Foss Barricade,
Night Foss Eagle Turf Fungicide one two three. Symbole is
that you're gonna get it in places like Courts Hardware
and Stafford Ospase ace in the woodlands and RCW Nursery
on A two forty nine in the Beltway. All these
places carry nitrofoss products. Get the three step down now.
You need to get done now. If you wait, you're

(01:57:24):
gonna miss out. And remember all three need to be
watered in about a half inch of water. So I
do all three and that way you only have the
water once. Any way you want to go about it, though,
just do it. We're going to go now to let's
see Scott in Santa Fe. Hey Scott, we're gonna hit
some music here pretty quick, but let's see if we
can help you before that happens.

Speaker 26 (01:57:46):
All right, skip, good morning. Hey, I've got a problem
with more Virginia budon and okay, I've got a half
acre subdivision a lot and I've seeing the virginia or
the bone eye weed beat here ultra but having the
spot treat aig?

Speaker 22 (01:58:04):
Is there a granual?

Speaker 26 (01:58:06):
Did my work.

Speaker 6 (01:58:09):
Not on Virginia button weed? Not dependably? You're not, so
you don't. With the yard that big, you can't handpull
it because I tell most people this time of year,
just pull as much as you can up, get all
those little buttons that are attached to the vines out,
so you get the seed out of there.

Speaker 7 (01:58:24):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (01:58:25):
And then next spring, when the new growth starts, that's
when you spread it with a post emergent weed control product.
And there's several in the market. Celsius is one. That's
one of the ones. I tend to recommend more because
it's very effective against the button weed. But wait until
new growth starts, because anytime you spread a herbicide to
kill an existing plant, if that plant is not growing,

(01:58:46):
if it's stressed or dormant, it's not going to work.
So once it's growing, then hit it next spring. Six
weeks later, you're gonna need to hit it again, and
just stay on it and you can get ahead of it.

Speaker 26 (01:58:59):
I've got like air is there, six foot by six foot?

Speaker 6 (01:59:04):
I mean they're solid button weed. Yes, if it's that bad,
you could also just spray it with something to kill
everything and then put new grass back in that spot.
That would be one option.

Speaker 8 (01:59:18):
So yeah, but go ahead.

Speaker 26 (01:59:20):
It's kind of all over the board. I was hoping
so the I got this off your website. But the
bone eye weed beater Ultra bom it supposedly doesn't hurt
the Saint Alaystin, but it'll kill the button weight.

Speaker 6 (01:59:35):
It will kill button weed, but it in the heat,
it will hurt Saint Augustine. Any of the two forty products,
the Trimac types of products and things, they're gonna in
the heat. If you read the label, little say don't
use when the temperature is above ninety or sometimes above
the mid eighties, mid upper eighties. So we try to

(01:59:56):
do those in spring and fall, but Celsius in the summer.
As long as you don't put a surfacting in it. Uh,
in the summer, it's not it's going to be safer
to use. There's there's some other products we could talk about,
but uh, that that's what I would That's what I
would do.

Speaker 26 (02:00:12):
Okay, So if I wait until the tempature drops a
little bit, can go ahead.

Speaker 8 (02:00:17):
I was gonna try in my backyard.

Speaker 6 (02:00:19):
Yeah, yeah, and it's it's dropped enough right now. Actually,
you know when when when the daytime highs or you
know about upper eighties or right at ninety, it's okay
to go ahead and do it if you want to.
If you've already got that product and the bony weed
bitter alter, you could use it. I just just let
it cool off a little bit. But I'm telling you,

(02:00:39):
at this time of year, Virginia button weed is shutting
down and you may not get as good a control
as you will in the spring when it's a more
vigorous plant.

Speaker 8 (02:00:48):
Okay, but it won't hurt to try, all all right.

Speaker 7 (02:00:52):
I appreciate.

Speaker 6 (02:00:55):
Well, good luck with it. I appreciate your call, Scott,
thanks a lot. All right, I'm about to head out.
Don't forget today the plans. Come on out and see
me at Arburgate Arbor Gate Garden Center in Tomball, just
west of Tomball on twenty nine twenty. I'll be there
answering your questions. We're going to be there with the
thirty sixty trees stabilizer folks. You gotta see center Rose. Oh,

(02:01:15):
and they're providing a lot of cool giveaways for today.

Speaker 1 (02:01:20):
Welcome to Katy r. H. Garden Line with Skip Ricard.

Speaker 3 (02:01:26):
Crazy Trim. Just watch him as.

Speaker 5 (02:01:40):
Many goings the sea black dasyasub.

Speaker 3 (02:01:49):
Not a sign credits.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):
Gas sumons of starting.

Speaker 6 (02:02:06):
Hey, welcome back to guard Line. Guess what we got
one hour left today. We'll be back tomorrow morning. For
those of you who haven't know what's going on around now,
I don't want to know what's happening. We're going to
do guard Line.

Speaker 7 (02:02:21):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:02:22):
If you haven't been listening to guard Line for a while,
well here's the deal. We're on from six am to
ten am every Saturday and Sunday. So tell your friends
and the family and that guy across the street that
won't take care of his yard garden line, and we'll
see if we can make the place a little a
little nicer as you drive down the street. That is
what we're here about and you're welcome to give me

(02:02:42):
a call at anytime. Seven one three two one two
five eight seven four seven one three five one two
fifty eight seventy four. Warren seven Gardens and Kingwood Garden
Center have got they've got a really good deal going
on a number of different UH coupons and if you
get if you sign up for their newsletter, you get

(02:03:04):
these things in your email and you can print them
out and take them in. And so you got to
sign up for the newsletters. Just you can go to
the websites and you check them out. They'll shut tell
you how are you When you go in the store,
just say hey, I want to sign up for the newsletter,
and they'll sign you up right there. I mean, it's
really easy to do right now. They have a beautiful
selection of houseplants.

Speaker 9 (02:03:25):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:03:25):
I love colorful houseplants, I just do.

Speaker 8 (02:03:28):
I like the.

Speaker 6 (02:03:28):
Morantas that have the beautiful like pink to purplish colors
in them. I like the aglianimas, the Chinese evergreens that
have a color in them, and the stripe types of
plants and things, and they've got things like that out
the Warren Southern Gardens, kingwo Of Garden Center. They also
have if you got kiddos, you got to get a
littlebinus fly trap. They have those and they look great,

(02:03:48):
so you know your kid'll be capturing all the flies
in the house to feed to the fly trap, or
they'll just naturally find their way in there. When you're
at Warren Southern Gardens, check out the beautiful selection of
cool season color things like pansies, things like snapdragons, things
like Viola's, things like diyanthus. Oh, and Dusty Miller. Don't
forget Dusty Miller. That is a very silvery white plant.

(02:04:10):
There's just a foliage plant. But you put that with
some blue colored winter flowers or red colored winter flowers.
I just think those two look especially good. Of course,
people have been talking today about Carbelode. To me, they've
got the carbeload there. They got you covered up on that.
They got the veggie and herb mix from the folks
at Earloom Soils. You know, a veggie and herb is excellent.

(02:04:32):
It says veggie and herb. But I'd use it in
flour bits, so it's good for that, good for all
kinds of things. And containers are in the bed all
of that. Wren Southern Gardens on North Park Drive, Kingwa
Gardens in our Stone Hollow Drive, both of them open
seven days a week, both of them. Let's see, We're
gonna go now to Jim and a Tascasita. Hey Jim, good.

Speaker 1 (02:04:55):
Morning, good morning.

Speaker 8 (02:04:58):
Let's here we go. The luwsill look terrible, but here
I think I've got a solution. Let's try this. I've
got my Microlife brown patch five three one, okay, and
I'm should I use should I mix the bio andoculant
with it when I spread it? Or should I not

(02:05:19):
use it? Or tell me what you do with this?
Right here?

Speaker 6 (02:05:23):
If you have brown patch, it is inoculated already with
sixty three different beneficial microbes. So you're good to go
with the brown patch. The bioinoculant's fine. A lot of
the micro life products have microbe in them, especially, but
for the brown patch, it's good to go as it is.

Speaker 8 (02:05:42):
Okay, it's good to go. Okay, now here is the
keyopper thing?

Speaker 7 (02:05:46):
Ready?

Speaker 8 (02:05:47):
What spreader do I use? Because my spreader just broke
spreading the brown patch? I said it out fifteen wide open.

Speaker 6 (02:05:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you can use, you know, whatever
spreader you want to get, but you're hard to find.

Speaker 8 (02:06:03):
They're hard to find a good one.

Speaker 6 (02:06:05):
They're bigger. Yeah, yeah, they're exercized chunks right right.

Speaker 8 (02:06:10):
But here's the deal. You know, we talk about spreading
all this stuff all the time, but now they've changed
the market and some of these spreaders are like four
and five hundred dollars and I've been using the Scott's Elite.

Speaker 6 (02:06:25):
Yeah. Yeah, they shouldn't cost you that much. What you
need to do, I would go over to Southwest Fertilizer.
They've got a nice selection of spreaders there, some quality
ones corner of Business and Renwick, and they're they're going
to fix you up for white way less than the
numbers you just threw out there, right, all right, that's.

Speaker 2 (02:06:43):
What I would.

Speaker 8 (02:06:43):
Thank you so much. Ship. Heyank, have a blessing all right,
to see you over there, about you too?

Speaker 6 (02:06:49):
Take care all right there you go.

Speaker 27 (02:06:52):
Hey.

Speaker 6 (02:06:52):
Medina products excellent line of products of all time. Medine
has been around since the nineteen fifties, and you know
it started off with some of the basic you know,
when you look at Medina like the has to grow.
Medina has to grow, For example, that's an excellent product.
It's still around, still does good. Look at the Medina
Plus now, when you look at Medina soil activator, that

(02:07:15):
there was one that was just original and they took it.
They took it and they enhanced it with a lot
of additional things such as extracts, seaweed and things like that,
and they created the Medina Plus, which is still a
good product. The has to Grow is actually a line,
you know, there's the has to Grow six twelve six
plant food. That hyphosphorus that I tell you is an

(02:07:37):
excellent one for transplanting. You use it for other things.
But Medina products in general are just something that you
need to have on the shelf because you're always going
to want them. I like the fact that a lot
of them, not all of them, but a lot of
them are a liquid based products. So you can put
them in a hose in spray er, you can put
them in a pump up spray, you can do follow
your feeding with them. Medina products work, and they're so

(02:07:58):
widely available that is really easy to find one for you.
If you're going to do transplanting this fall. I hope
you will be planting this fall, you need to have
some Medina products on hand. I would start with that
hast Grow six twelve six for that. Let's go out
to Manville. Now we're going to talk to Debbie. Hello, Debbie,
Welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 7 (02:08:17):
Hello, Skip, thank you.

Speaker 16 (02:08:20):
I have a question about landscape rocks.

Speaker 6 (02:08:24):
Okay, I am trying.

Speaker 16 (02:08:26):
To replace the landscape rocks around my front bed right now.
I have a stacked type rock that's gotten all, you know,
out of shape and discolored. I picked up a sample
at a landscaping company that's like three to four inches
square and maybe eight to twelve inches long. You may

(02:08:49):
know what I'm talking about. They're pretty prevalent in the landscape.
It's kind of brick, but more of a square taptic Okay.
So I brought it home and I looked at it
and it's very very chalky, and it looks to me
like it's complete solid limestone. And I'm just wondering if
that would change the pH off my soil. Will that

(02:09:10):
change the pH and the soil if I put that
all the way round, it won't.

Speaker 6 (02:09:14):
Okay, So the quarter inch of soil touching the rock
is going to go up in pH a little bit.
But it's not gonna. No, I don't worry about that.
Those are used because you know, they're they're smaller, they're thinner,
and so you can line, you can go and you
make them go in a circle, even though they're they're rectangular,
but you can create a circle around the tree and
other things. They're very versatile and so no, they'll be

(02:09:37):
fine to use, no problem at all.

Speaker 16 (02:09:39):
Okay, okay, great, that was my question. Thank you so much.

Speaker 6 (02:09:44):
All Right, all right, you bet, thank you for the call.
Appreciate you asking. Yeah, a while ago, I was talking
to a gem in a tust casita and just said,
we'll go over to Southwest Fertilizer. You know, I don't
talk about this about them. I tell you they got everything,
but I don't talk about the fact that they got
some really nice fertilizer spruaders, the push behind with the wheels,
you know, putting out your your fertilizers. You know, the

(02:10:06):
products like azamide and and products like you know, like
for example, the barricade for night Trust to do the
pre emergent and stuff. They've got. They've got the fertilizer
spreaders for that, and they also have the handheld ones,
the ones you hold in one hand and crank and
the other. Uh, you're putting out fire at Baite, boy,
I've got I found out I had fire ants. I
didn't know I had men in the yard. And the

(02:10:28):
other day I was going through mowing and I kicked
up two mounds that had just showed up. Uh, so
I got to get out there with my hand crank
and Bob's got those at Southwest Fertilizer as well. Don't
forget two that you need a blade for your mowers,
you need repair of the small engines, or just to
purchase some of the lawn care equipment. They got a
little shop in the back for all of that kind
of thing there at Southwest Fertilizer, in addition to all

(02:10:49):
the other things I talk about. Corner a bis Nutt
and Runwick seven one three six six six one seven
four four. Give them a call and say, hey, I'm
looking for as such and such. We have it all right.
I'm gonna take a little break and we'll be back
with your calls. All right, tools, Welcome back to the
guard Line. Good to have you with us. You got

(02:11:11):
a question, give me a call seven one three two
fifty eight seventy four h RCW right now has the
perfect storm. Fall is the best season of the year
to plant shrubs, trees, perennials, a lot of things. And
they've got a sale that is outstanding. So here's your

(02:11:33):
chance to stock up. Do you do you want an
azaluor commie I was talking about comitte is how we
need those for cool season color. Fifteen percent off right now,
it's time to put them on the ground. Let's do it.

Speaker 8 (02:11:45):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:11:45):
If you want perennials or crate myrtles, both of those
are thirty percent off, and the citrus trees and select
roses forty percent off. Out at RCW Nurseries. Now that's
located on two forty nine and in Houston. Really easy
to get to you just belt Way nine and so

(02:12:06):
go check them out. Check out their metal and concrete
yard art. They've got some real cool stuff too. That's
also thirty percent off. By the way, even though you
can plant that anytime of the year. At RCW Nursery
RCDEWI nurseres dot com. Go check them out. A great place.
Love to go there. I'm gonna be there in the future.
I'll tell you a little bit more about that later,
but I'll be there in a few weeks. So there

(02:12:28):
we go. Uh so what are we talking about today?
We've got we had a lot of different topics that
we've covered. Mainly, I would say the most timely thing
in the yard right now is to prevent the cool
season weeds. To prevent the brown patch, the circles. It's
called large patch now but everyby cause it brown patch.

(02:12:49):
Prevent those circles. And to make sure your lawn goes
into winter with a good load of potassium with some
nitrogen in it. Those are the two most important elements
going in the fall. That's why Nelson made carbo load
the purple bag, the ten ten twenty fertilizer, the one
containing the ingredient that when you water in your fertilizer,

(02:13:11):
and this ingredient it prevents the weeds from coming up
that are going to be fall weeds. So what do
I mean by that, Well, think about blue bonnets. I
know you're not trying to kill bluebonnets in your yard,
but that weed iby understands the life cycle of blue bonnets.
It sprouts in the fall, goes through winter and you
don't even see it. Like driving down the highway in January,

(02:13:31):
you don't see blue bonnets. I mean you're really you
don't notice them. There are little plants at that time.
But then as the days get longer the warmer here,
they come. They grow, they get knee deep, and they
bloom all over the place. That's what cool season weeds
are doing. So you stop them before they get started.
That's why now is so important. In October. The fertilizer

(02:13:52):
is very important in October and that weed prevention. And
they're put together in the carbo Load ten twenty ten
purple bag from the folks that Nelson simple as that
also grab some of the Nelson Genesis transplant mix. They
sell it typically in the jars. Anytime you're going to
plant anything in the ground in a container, moving things
from pot to pot, bumping up your tomato transplants, whatever

(02:14:14):
you're doing anytime of the year. Nelson Nutral Star Genesis
Transplant Mix Nelson Neutral part of the nutri Star line
available all over town. This and the Nelson family been
around here since the late eighteen hundreds, making their own
fertilizer right here locally in the Houston area. Nelson Plant
Food Carbload. That's it's important time wise. I use the analogy.

(02:14:43):
You've heard me say this before, but I use the
analogy of playing baseball because I think everybody understands this.
If you're a batter and you want to hit the ball,
meaning you want to have success with these issues in
the landscape, when the pitcher throws the oh, you start
swinging before the ball gets there so you can hit it.

(02:15:03):
If you wait until it's in the catcher's mit, it's
too late. If you wait to control bound patch until
the circles are there, you're a little late. If you
wait to control weeds with a pre emergent until the
weeds are up and growing, you're too late. And if
you wait to fertilize until let's say November December or something, well,

(02:15:23):
you're not going to get much benefit out of it
because the grass is shutting down and you don't get
the full benefit that you would right now. So that's
why it's important to do these things on time in
your landscape. So keep that in mind. Hey, if you've
been to horages, hidden gardens, orges, hidden gardens, they're down
there in the Alvin area. Actually, if you're in Alvin

(02:15:47):
heading to Santa Fe down Highway six, what you do
is you go off to the right and go down
a street called Elizabeth Street. You have to turn down
the street to get there. But anyway, that's where it's local.
Back in there now. Last time I checked, the hours
were Tuesday through Friday nine to three and Saturday and Sunday. Yes,

(02:16:07):
today and tomorrow eight to four down there, and so
all of you done in those communities like Alvin and Alta,
Loma Hillcrest, al Co al Go, excuse Meco, Santa Fe, Arcadia,
all those communities. This is your backyard nursery. In fact,
all down south in that direction. Or Hey carries the
three sixty tree stabilizer. That that's another reason to get

(02:16:31):
by there and pick one of those up. And is
an excellent stock of trees. Got some beautiful live oaks,
and he'll come out and plant them for you. There.
They're having a little program down there, planting trees in
the fall. He's doing a low program. Started it oop.
I just looked at the time I started thirty minutes ago. Sorry,
you can ask him what he talked about when you
get there. Didn't check that first. He also has the

(02:16:55):
banana magnolia. There's a little bush a shrub makes a
small tree almost, but it's a it's a shrub banana magnolia.
The balloons are small yellow and have the smell of bananas.
They do, and Rayes got them at Rayes Head and Gardens.
Go by in there and check those out. That's a
cool plant. We got to talk about that more. It's
got a tomball now and we're gonna talk to Reggie. Hey, Reggie,

(02:17:17):
welcome to the garden line.

Speaker 15 (02:17:20):
Hey, how are you, sir?

Speaker 8 (02:17:21):
I wanted to know if the Nelson cover they you
talked about, can I use that for a brown packet
that's coming up.

Speaker 6 (02:17:28):
No, it only has fertilizer and weed prevention. It does
not have disease prevention in it. You would still need
to use like the Nitrofoss Eagle turf funge aside if
you were gonna do the the the cover load.

Speaker 22 (02:17:49):
Okay, perfect, Thank you sir.

Speaker 8 (02:17:51):
And you said it was a Nitroflies Eagle car but
your size eagle.

Speaker 7 (02:17:55):
Sure.

Speaker 6 (02:17:56):
Yeah. Nitrofaus Eagle is part of Nitrofoss's three step would
is a fertilizer, a weed prevention, and a disease control.
Three separate bags. You put them all out and you
water them in about a half inch of water and
that that's that's how that works.

Speaker 7 (02:18:12):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 8 (02:18:13):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 6 (02:18:14):
Let me show you bet Reggie, thanks for calling in.
Appreciate that. Glad we could help. Hey, Affordable Tree Service.
Listen how many times today I have I've been telling
you our trees are struggling. This has been a long
dry period. It had been hot as all get out
and had been raining. Call Martin. Call Martin at Affordable

(02:18:35):
Tree Service. Here's the number seven to one three six
nine nine two six sixty three. And now normally I'm saying,
cal Martin's going to come out and pring your trees
this winter during the dormance season, the most important bringing
season of the year. Right now, I want to tell
you Martin, he can do deep root feeding and deep
root watering on trees as well, and as a good
rescue treatment. That is not a bad idea right now.

(02:18:58):
So and the sooner you do it, the better, because
we're trying to alleviate the stress from the trees that
listen to problems. Martin and the team at Affordable have
been recommended by garden Line for twenty five years now,
back when Randy was doing it, and now when I'm
doing it, and they will come out, they'll deeproot, feed,
they'll prune, they'll they'll remove heavy limbs before cold weather

(02:19:20):
hits schedule. I'll always just staying busy because Martin does
good work seven to one three six nine nine two
six six y three, or go to his website aff
tree service dot com. The main thing is just do it,
don't delay, get it done. We're going to go now
to Cyprus, Texas and talk to Tiffany. Hey, Tiffany, welcome

(02:19:43):
to garden Line.

Speaker 25 (02:19:44):
Hi, Skip, good morning. I have a question about a
bed and I just sent you an email of a picture,
and it's a bed that we It's pretty small, it's
right by our driveway and email, and it's between like
our neighbor's house, and we have very clay soil. I

(02:20:05):
get full sun, and so what I like to plant
is something that we don't have to prune a lot,
but something that is hardy. And we love our neighbors,
so we want it to be beautiful, you know, for
them as well. And I heard you talk about today
the Chinese fern, and you've talked about the narrow leaf

(02:20:28):
vinia been dryalis.

Speaker 6 (02:20:32):
I'm not sure those, yeah, I don't. I don't know
that on the Chinese fern. I think we got a
wires crossed on that one. Chinese witch. Chinese witch hazel
is a plant. It is a shrub. It has pretty
uh fushia colored blooms in the springtime, and it has
burgundy foliage, and you pick pick the variety according to

(02:20:53):
how big it gets. But but not not Chinese fern.
Another one was a pretty roastbrush. You'll get a it
doesn't have diseases like the knockout roses. That would be
beautiful out there for both of you, and it could
easily be shared and trimmed to stay in that area.
But Chinese witch hazel will be another. But you're gonna
have to share it to keep it the width you

(02:21:14):
want it to be, because you know, go in all directions,
it's going to hit the edge of that driveway. So
you might want to move that bed, expand it over
about a foot towards your neighbor to make it a
little wider bed and to get the middle of it
a little further away from the driveway.

Speaker 16 (02:21:33):
Gotcha, okay?

Speaker 25 (02:21:34):
And like we have very clay soil, what we usually
do is get landscaper's pride, like soil, moult, all the
things that they provide.

Speaker 14 (02:21:43):
Would that be okay?

Speaker 6 (02:21:46):
Putting any kind of a composted mix into the soil
is beneficial for the clay. I would spread it out,
I would work it into the soil, maybe put about
three inches deep, work it into the oil, and then
finish filling it up with that product. And that way
you get a transition from the clay to the quality

(02:22:07):
soul mix. I got about twenty seconds and I have
to stop talking, but that would be the best That
would be the best approach for that. But good luck
with that. Sorry to have to run so quick here,
but we're just up against a very very hard break.
But I'm looking forward to send me a picture. Whatever
you choose to do, you take care, okay, alrighty, folks,
I am going to be taking a little break and

(02:22:29):
I'll be right back with your calls. Don't forget. I'm
going to be at Arbrogate today from twelfth to two.
Come on in and see me. All right, folks, here
we go, Welcome back to guarden Line.

Speaker 2 (02:22:41):
Thank you.

Speaker 6 (02:22:43):
We are glad to have you with us. Thanks for
tuning in. Don't forget. I want to be at Arbrogate
today arbor Gate Garden Center just west of Tombull on
twenty nine to twenty just outside down there on the left.
Make sure and parking the parking lot in the back.
That nice new expand parking lot, very safe to get
in and get out. Lots of room for everybody. And

(02:23:04):
there's gonna be a lot of folks coming out today
because it's a great day to be at Arbrogate. It's
always a good day to be at Arbrogate. If you
got any samples, if you got any photos that you
want me to analyze, assess, make recommendations about, bring them
on out.

Speaker 12 (02:23:16):
This is a.

Speaker 6 (02:23:19):
Great way, a great time for us to be able
to have a little time to talk and to help
you have success. That's what we're all about here on
garden line seven one three two one two fifty eight
seventy four. If you'd like to give me a call
uh the Nitrofoss Texas three Steps. Someone is asking about
it a minute ago night Foss Texas three Step. That

(02:23:40):
is the three products that are done in the fall
to make sure your lawn looks its best, not only
in fall and winter, but coming out in the spring.
The first is the fertilizer, the night foss Fall special
winter Riser fertilizer that is going to get your lawn
stocked up with the neutrie it needs to make the carbohydrates.

(02:24:02):
It needs to be very cold, hardy as cold hart
as akin, and also to come out stronger in the spring.
The second step night fuss barricade that prevents weed seeds
from establishing weed plants. They try to sprout and they
can't become plant. It shuts them down right there. And
the third one is eagle turf fungicide. Night to fuss

(02:24:23):
Eagle turf fungicide. It goes into the plant and then
when bronpatch tries to hit it has trouble it. It's
like having a like you taking an antibiotic and then
a disease tries to attackle It's like, no, you already
got this stuff in your system that's preventing it. That's
kind of how that works. And so what I would
recommend is you do all three on the same day,

(02:24:43):
make three passes out on the lawn. Don't mix this
stuff together. Particle size is different. You will not get
even distribution. Put out the fertilizer, put out the barricade,
put out the eagle in three trips out there on
the yard, and then turn on the water for a
half inch. Get it moved into the soil, because all
of them need to go into the soil. Well, the
fertilizer is taken up by the roots sitting on the surface.

(02:25:03):
It didn't do it any good. You gotta water it in.
The barricade is watered and it ties up in the
surface part of the soil where the weed seeds are
and it prevents them from coming up the fung a side.
Nitruss eagle is taken up by the roots of your
grass and it helps fight disease that way. Now where
do you get these? Well, go to Hyde No Heating
and Feet in Houston carries them. You can go to

(02:25:26):
plants for all seasons on the Wetta they carry nit
foss products, as does Fisher's Hardware done in Pasadena, Texas.
All right, there you go, simple as that. Let's see here, Well,
we had a call coming in and it disappeared. We'll
see if it comes back. So that gives me a
chance to actually talk about some things that I like

(02:25:46):
to talk about. If you have never tried growing a
mini greens meadow and a container. I'm gonna let that
sink in just a minute. That was a lot of
weird words that don't go together. A mini greens meadow
and container. What I'm talking about is this. You get
you a big wide container. It does not have to
be deep. It does not have to I have a cattle, well,

(02:26:09):
it's like a rubbery kind of thing that livestock is
watered in or fed in. Probably got it at D
and D feed or something anyway, Uh, and it's only
about six inches deep. I've also used the really thick
catch basins underneath plants for this. But you put your

(02:26:29):
potting mix and stuff in there and then you sprinkle
like in one, I would do lettuce. It could be.
I'm not saying it has to be shallow. I'm just saying,
don't worry about getting a big deep pot It doesn't matter.
You sprinkle the lettuce on there, you water it and
keep it moist, and it comes up and when it
gets about three inches high or four inches high, you
just take scissors and mow your meadow and take it

(02:26:51):
in and you got a salad. I would do several
of these. I would do one with kale kale baby kale,
is great. I would do one with spinach. Baby spin
is great. If you like some unusual, cool seasoned salad
type greens like a regular, that would be a good
one to do. Don't mix these together, and here's why.

(02:27:11):
They germinate sometimes at different times and they grow at
different rates, and so you can have a mixed container,
but it won't end up being is evenly mixed of
a harvest, if you know what I'm talking about. So
do separate containers and then you just mow them off.
You mow them off about an inch above the ground
and they reach brout and they come back. So you
can have several of these and it's a good thing people.

(02:27:32):
You know, it's a good conversation piece and people come over.
But why not try that? Yeah, you can grow all
those in a garden bed. Of course, if you do that,
do that. I'm just trying to tell you this is
a new little thing. Get the kids involved. They will
really think that's cool. And that way you can also
get them to eat some stuff they might not want
to eat. I hope they're not listening anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:27:51):
There you go.

Speaker 6 (02:27:53):
You know, we got to eat those things. It's good
for you, especially that you know the blue leaf vegetable
things like, oh gosh, I just went blank on the
lilifeschbo kale, cabbage, cole, Robbie russell sprouts, broccoli collars. What

(02:28:14):
am I forgetting? I think I cover most of them there. Uh,
those are really good for you. They have they have
a disease fighting compounds in them. Uh instead of onions too,
by the way, onions have something called corcident in them.
That's good. So we got a lot of cool season
healthy stuff we could be growing in the garden.

Speaker 4 (02:28:31):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (02:28:32):
And not everybody likes all those. I know some people
don't like kale. I heard I heard a sportscaster one
time say he was talking, you know, all of these
teams of guys joking around up there on about sports,
and and he telling the other days. He goes, oh,
I got a great way to cook kale. He goes,
You get you a cookie sheet and you spray it
with a non stick spray. Uh, and then you put

(02:28:55):
your kale leaves on it and put a spray with
a little bit of olive oil, and then sprinkle salt
on them and put them in and bake them until
they turn crispy. And then you go over to the
trash and tilt the cookie sheet and they'll slide right
off in the trash. All right, smart, but it even
Remember when the first George Bush, our Houston, George Bush

(02:29:19):
was president of the US. Uh, he said one time
something about he didn't like broccoli and he refused to
eat broccoli, and oh my gosh, people got all upset.
Our kids are going to grow up messed up because
now they won't eat broccoli because the president. Any you
know how we always overreact everything. Well, anyway, there was

(02:29:40):
a guy in a big broccoli costume marching protesting in
front of the White House. He looked like Gumby with
a little puffy cloud head or something. It was ridiculous anyway,
So don't be afraid of those. Those are great. Those
are great vegetables. They're really good for you use them
in a lot of different ways. And so I'm trying
to talk you into being a cool season gardener. And

(02:30:02):
I know you're not going to dig up the back
forty just because I say it's a good idea, right,
But maybe I can talk to you into some containers
where you can grow all this kind of stuff. Anyway,
there you go, that's that's the best I got. You've been.
I've pled with you to try it out and get
the kids involved. Kids that learn to eat good stuff
when they're younger are likely to eat good stuff as

(02:30:23):
they get older. It's just the way it is. And
we all have things we think we don't like, but
our taste change going through life. So there you go,
all right, well, Plants Fall Seasons has a great selection
of these vegetables and seeds. When you go into the
store in Plants Fall Seasons, the shop the check out place,
look at the wall to the left when you walk
in from the parking lot. It is a long wall

(02:30:46):
full of seeds everything you can want to grow, herbs
and vegetables and flowers and you name it. They're right there.
So you're all set up to walk into Plants for
All Seasons. You got to walk past all these bags
of you know, fertilizers and potting soils and all that
kind of stuff. So you got everything you need right there.
And then they have good They have plants inside too

(02:31:06):
if you want to do transplants of vegetables and flowers
and whatnot. But try something like that. By the way,
Plants for All Seasons is on Highway two forty nine,
just north of Luetta Road, just north of Luetta Road
off two forty nine. And it's well known all the
folks in that area. Great service, great knowledge for the
folks that work there. The website they've redone. It looks great.

(02:31:29):
Plants for all seasons dot com. Plants for all seasons
dot com. And here's the phone number two eight one
three seven six sixteen forty six. I gotta go to
a break, Bob and Walker County. You're the first up
here we go. There you go, dire straits. I love
upbeat music. I feel upbeate this morning. It's a good day.

(02:31:53):
Welcome to garden Line today. What we're gonna do, We're
gonna run right out there to Walker County and talk
to Bob this morning. Hey Bob, welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 15 (02:32:01):
Hey, Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 7 (02:32:04):
Hey.

Speaker 15 (02:32:04):
I have had problems over every now and then with
I can't remember which kind of bug it is, but
there I end up with these little white moth type
h flut not flies, but the other teeny moss in
my Saint Augustine.

Speaker 6 (02:32:23):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (02:32:24):
Some years I just get a couple of them. A
couple of years I got really tons of them, and
I forget what the underlying bug was and I had
some some uh insecticide to kill them and it worked great.
I'm seeing a few more of those this year, and
I was wanting to tell me again what they are.
And you know, if they if I just have a

(02:32:46):
few of them, should I bother to treat them or
just let them go away and win her?

Speaker 6 (02:32:52):
I don't think you need to treat them, but I
don't know what they are. I'm not following you. Are
you saying the bug looks like moss?

Speaker 9 (02:33:00):
No?

Speaker 15 (02:33:00):
No, no, no, the the but there's a they just
you were planning before described it and I can't remember
the name. But there's some sort of a grub in
the in the ground and when that pub turns into
a moth m O T eight, you get these little
small white moth looking things that flutter around.

Speaker 6 (02:33:21):
Okay, okay, that that's probably this time of year, well,
late summer and early fall. Uh that is side webworms
sid webworms.

Speaker 15 (02:33:32):
Yes, that's what he described it before.

Speaker 6 (02:33:35):
Yeah, are you when you look at the lawn, does
it look like there's a bunch of grass blades missing,
like the grass is disappearing?

Speaker 15 (02:33:44):
The lawn looks healthy. It's I have a sprinkler system,
but there's no nothing's perfect. It's a little stressed from
the weather, but other than that, it's pretty good shape.

Speaker 6 (02:33:56):
Okay, No, I wouldn't treat him at this point. Uh Now,
if you had a bunch of them as earlier on,
especially well early on, doesn't matter if when you have
enough of them, you do need to treat for them.
But we're getting really to the end of their season here,
and you know it. Nature can do what nature does,
but in general, we don't look at you know, like

(02:34:18):
November and December being side web warm months, and really
even even at the point in October we're hitting I
just don't know that it's worth a treatment, and I
hate to send you out there to nuke everything when
we probably don't have a problem that needs treatment.

Speaker 15 (02:34:34):
Okay, Well, you're sort of confirming my thoughts because they're
not as bad as I have had them in some years.
I still have a half a bag of whatever I
had to treat them once. I can't remember the name
of it, but I'm thinking it's, as you said, late
and it's not the infestation that I've had before. Is

(02:34:54):
there any reason to treat again in the spring or
somewhere early that kind of prevent.

Speaker 6 (02:35:00):
Or just for that for that, for that past, it's
a late season past. And if you look at my
schedule online, the pestweed and disease schedule that's on my website,
which is Gardening with Skip dot com, to see that
we have sid webworms extending until about the end of
September typically. Uh and so okay, yeah, we're late enough.

(02:35:23):
A lot of our pests of the summer or late
summer are not around, are going away now?

Speaker 15 (02:35:29):
Okay, okay, great, that's what I needed.

Speaker 6 (02:35:32):
Thank you, Bob, Hey, thanks for Carl, appreciate that. Let's
go out to Wharton and talk to Angie this morning. Hey, Angie,
welcome to garden Line.

Speaker 27 (02:35:42):
Good morning Skip. I am going to be planting some
verinoculas and anemony today and I'm wondering what I should
amend the soil with to make sure it's well draining.
And then the second part of that question is, I
know I should stop the irrigation, but we have a drought.

(02:36:02):
Should Should I just check the soil occasionally and make
sure it's.

Speaker 6 (02:36:05):
Not too dry or absolutely? Yeah? No digging out about
four inches or so and feel the soil if you
have any questions, because yeah, we normally don't have to
water a whole lot. It's still warm. But in the
next month or so we should be really cutting back
on the water. Again, I keep referring to my schedules,
but I want people to know what's on there. On

(02:36:27):
the long Care schedule. Every month of the year, it
tells you in a typical average season, which just means,
you know, average is never average, but it's always too
much or too little. But in average, in October, you
need one half inch of irrigation a month, I mean
a week if it hasn't rained, one half inch a

(02:36:51):
week if it hasn't rained. And November is the same way,
a half inch a week if it hadn't rained. And
then in December and January and February we generally don't
water at all. Okay, so that much water, no, no, no,
the corns, but they do need to get the roots
done and they're not going to do that in dry soil,

(02:37:11):
So water a little bit to get them going. Uh,
they need they need good drainage. So if it's a
clay and it's kind of a low area, I would
build up the soil into somewhat of a raised.

Speaker 1 (02:37:22):
Bed so that it is a.

Speaker 11 (02:37:26):
Bed.

Speaker 6 (02:37:26):
Yeah, all right, then you're you're good to go. You're
good to go.

Speaker 14 (02:37:31):
Should I should I go ahead?

Speaker 27 (02:37:32):
And I mean the bed been in for two years?
Should I should I amend the soil just a little
bit with maybe some acidified cotton seed berr and some
additional rose soil s dirred all up and then put them.

Speaker 2 (02:37:44):
In a hole.

Speaker 6 (02:37:45):
Yeah, either or either ones organic matter and so that
would be good. There's no problem with doing that, no
problem at all. Okay, okay, hey, say hey to my
say hello to my friends over at Wharton feed and
Ace on North Richmond down there in Wharton.

Speaker 27 (02:37:59):
That's where I'm headed today. I certainly will.

Speaker 6 (02:38:02):
Well good tell them, I said, hi, all right, right,
you take care, all right, thank you? Bye bye? Alrighty there. Well,
I think that's our last call of the day because
by the time you dial and I tried to start talking,
we would be here in music. So I'm going to
finish it out with a couple of thoughts that I
have here. So we we talked about a lot of

(02:38:24):
different things that are seasonal and whatnot. Here this is
a season where people that live further north get fall color.
And we don't have a lot of plants that have
fall color. And I used to say that if it
has good fall color, don't plant it here. And what
I was saying that for is Chinese tallow trees great
fall color. A woody weed shouldn't be planted here. The

(02:38:48):
sweet it is a pretty tree in the forest, and
things been in landscapes. Sweet comes as they get older,
they don't heal well and they end up, you know,
becoming a little bit of a hazard, or they can.
And also the sweet gumballs, you don't want to run
across those. They have decent fall color. You know, plant
those here. But there are plants that do have fall color,
and I'm not gonna have time to get to all
of them today. But crate myrtle is a plant that

(02:39:10):
has fall color. If you go online, I mean check
this while I'm telling you, because it used to be true.
Let me find out if it's still true. But if
you do a search for my name, Skip Richter and
then crate myrtle, crate myrtle and do a search for that,
let me see see how this pops up. Can you
believe I'm on the radio. I'm sitting here having you

(02:39:31):
wait for me to type in. If you do that now,
there it's not there. No, ill, it's not used to
be up at the top. They must have moved the
darn thing.

Speaker 21 (02:39:43):
Well.

Speaker 6 (02:39:44):
Anyway, it was a publication online from A and M
and that it had all the different crate myrtles and
all the attributes of them. And you can still find
this stuff out by doing searches online. But there are
crate myrtles that have beautiful fall color. Usually it's like
a maroon and an orange. I know, I just said

(02:40:04):
those two in the same sentence. Burgundy, orange, maroon, orange colors.
As they turn and fall, there'll be yellows in there
as well. Craymar is a prduina plant for that. And
there are some other plants that give you decent fall color.
Like I said, I don't I have time talking about
them now, but just watch out for a lot of
the things that are touted because they just it's just

(02:40:27):
a problem here, you know, like the ones that I mentioned.
I was trying to think of another one that is
an example of that. But anyway, so if you want
fall color, find you the ones that do well. Plant
them in the fall. Plant everything you can in the fall.
It's the best season. You get the most bang for
your buck, you get the most survivability, you get the

(02:40:48):
most easy care. It's the time to do this, all right.

Speaker 8 (02:40:53):
So there you go.

Speaker 6 (02:40:55):
I'm heading to Arborgate. I'll be there from twelve to
two answering gardening questions. Beverage has got all kinds of giveaways.
We're gonna be giving out. It'll be fun. Come on bye,
say hello to the folks at three six to three.
Stabilizer as well